The Midday Lord
by ketren
Summary: Stiles is just trying to learn the truth about his mom's murder. Luckily, he's got his own set of supernatural skills to help with that. So when Peter asks for help finding out what really happened the night of the Hale fire, it gets a lot harder for Stiles to keep his secret...But Stiles is burning for answers, and he's not too worried about what it takes to get them.
1. Not That Kind of Hot

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 **Full Summary:**

It's not that Stiles doesn't get along with the Hale pack, it's just that he's keeping his head down while trying to learn the truth about his mom's murder. And luckily, he's got his own set of supernatural skills to help with that.

So when Peter approaches him to ask for help finding out what happened the night of the Hale fire, it gets a whole lot harder to keep what he is a secret—especially because murderers don't appreciate it when you drag their dirty deeds into the light.

But Stiles is burning to find answers, and he's not too worried about what it takes to get them.

 **Rating: T** for some violence and language, nothing crazy but please use discretion, etc. etc.

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 **The Midday Lord**

 **Chapter One**

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Stiles has always kind of wanted to suddenly pop up in the rearview mirror of someone's else's car, like in the movies. To see the complete surprise on a victim's face, maybe even get a legit screech of terror. Plus, it seems super appropriate given the situation.

He sort of underestimated how much it would make him feel like a creep, though, lying in the backseat of a stupidly wide (but surprisingly comfortable) Ford F-150, half-heartedly triple-checking a couple Beacon Hills news feeds on his phone as he waits. The air in the truck cabin is humid and sweltering; the summer sun, which is at its height now in the middle of August, scorches the windows. If heat wasn't kind of Stiles' thing, he'd have probably passed out by now.

Eventually, he hears footsteps approaching from outside. Stiles pockets his phone and reaches for the handle of his baseball bat, mostly for his own comfort. The dashboard display lights up as one Colin Ellery unlocks and approaches his car.

The truck cabin shifts as the man opens the door and slides inside. Stiles doesn't wait for him to turn the car on. (Come on, he's vengeful, not suicidal. Scaring the shit out of someone when their car's cruising at 40 miles an hour seems like a good way to get them both killed.) He sits up and leans forward to meet Ellery's gaze in the rearview mirror. To his credit, the man doesn't shout, though his eyes fly open wide and he flinches in his seat as if struck.

There's sort of a trick to it: when Stiles gets like this, and if he's concentrating just right when he locks eyes with someone, they seem to have a hard time looking away. Or doing anything, really. His mom could have done it better, without needing to focus so much. She'd explained it all to him once when he was younger, but Stiles hasn't really gotten the hang of it yet.

Anyway, it's a trick he'll have to figure out on his own now.

"Hi," Stiles chirps. There's a grin across his face that's almost real. "You're Colin Ellery?"

Obviously, Stiles knows the answer to this, having recognized Ellery from the photos in the papers. This man is in his late forties, maybe a year or so older than Stiles's own father—but life doesn't seem to have treated him nearly as well. Purple shadows weigh down the bottoms of his eyes, and he's got a maze of crow's feet branching out from their corners. Stiles thinks if he were to look away from the mirror, he'd find that Ellery's mouse-brown hair is beginning to thin, but he can't break his gaze now.

"Yes," Ellery says, the word coming out slowly. By now, he's probably recognized the stifling heat of the car, and that he's virtually incapable of looking away. With what little movement he can manage, he's stiffly pressed himself away from Stiles and into the car door as much as possible. "Who are you?"

Stiles knows from experience that people have a hard time seeing him when he's like this, that he grows somehow brighter. Less recognizable. Almost hellish, on a second glance. The car is stifling now. Not for Stiles, of course, but he can sense how it might be for someone else. And Ellery's skin is already beginning to glint with sweat.

"No one important," Stiles says eventually. "Could be an enemy, could be a friend. But I have a few questions for you, so it depends on how I like your answers." He leans forward onto the center storage console, making himself comfortable. "Your alibi for the night of May 2nd. You weren't really in San Francisco visiting your brother like the court documents say, were you? Your brother's just covering for you."

"I...I…" The man's breathing is a bit labored, but Stiles can't tell if that's because of the heat or anxiety over the unexpected question. His eyes are a little glazed over, and Stiles thinks he should maybe tone it down. Probably. "I wasn't…"

It's possible he was going to say more, to refute the accusation, but he trails off for long enough that Stiles accepts his answer. "Good," he says, drumming the plastic in celebration. "Off to a good start. Second question: if you weren't in San Francisco, what _were_ you doing on the night of May 2nd?"

"Here," the man gasps. "I was—in Beacon Hills." Stiles smiles, thinking this might be easier than he'd thought, but the man continues of his own accord. "Couple of us were...were out drinking, and—nothing happened, though, I...I just went home."

"Nuh uh," Stiles replies, and the man swallows. He's far gone enough that Stiles feels comfortable breaking his gaze. He watches a bead of sweat roll down Ellery's stubbled throat. "One more try."

Ellery is quiet enough that Stiles thinks the dizziness must already setting in. "There was that girl," he says at last.

"Rhea Gonzales."

"Yeah. She...she ran out right into the street. I was...we'd all been drinking. I didn't see her in time, she was there like a fucking picture flashing, nothing one second and something the next, and I—...I hit her. And I couldn't, man, I couldn't have done anything, I mean you hit a deer or something, hard, like it happened then, and you _know_ they didn't make it, and this girl, I _knew_ she didn't make it."

"Did you—" Stiles stops himself. He's angry now, but he runs his thumb along the handle of the bat, taking a few breaths to let it pass. It seems pretty unlikely, based on the statements of character in the reports he'd snuck from his dad's office, that Ellery tried to help the girl, or made a phone call, or _anything._ So hearing this part will just get Stiles's blood boiling. And if he isn't careful, he'll take things too far.

Ellery isn't helping his own case, because when he keeps going, he proves just as despicable as Stiles might have expected. "I wasn't gonna be arrested man, I wasn't going to jail…they would have known I was drinking, they would have known—"

"And you didn't serve time. Of course. You got acquitted." Stiles frowns when the man doesn't continue, but then, it hadn't really been framed as a question. "So who do you know? Who paid?"

The man looks frightened now. Well, more frightened, anyway. His face has turned an ugly shade of puce, and he stares dazedly at Stiles from his slumped position in the seat. "I don't…"

"Answer the question." Stiles says quietly. "This only gets worse if I don't like your answers. Or if you don't answer at all."

"What are you doing to me?" Ellery asks, pulling weakly at the sweaty collar of his t-shirt.

"That's not how this works. You answer the questions, and maybe I let you go, or maybe I don't. Depends on what you say. Or you can sit here and keep sweating it out until it gets hot enough for seizures and organ failure. I can tell you all about it, I've researched like you wouldn't believe."

Ellery swallows again. "My father-in-law used to be best friends with the judge," he manages at last. "I mean, he's got the money, but he didn't pay—"

"He put in a good word, I'm sure," Stiles inserts benevolently, resting his chin on one fist.

"I—yeah, he...I mean, favors exchanged, you know—my dad looks out for him next election..." Ellery says faintly, once it's clear that Stiles won't respond right away. The man still isn't all there, his eyes clouded, but he manages to inch himself up just a bit to get a better glimpse of Stiles. Whatever he sees makes him swallow frightfully and look away.

As Stiles weighs it all in his mind, he finds that it all balances out: everyone and their grandma knew Ellery had killed Rhea Gonzales in the hit-and-run a few months ago, so the truth as Ellery spoke it was far from surprising. And Mattes Ellery, this guy's father-in-law, _was_ on the list of possible connections for the insanely fast acquittal. (That's along with mismanagement of evidence by the prosecution, but there's really only so much Stiles can tackle at once. He's just one witch, after all.)

"Okay," Stiles agrees after a beat. "I'll take it." He leans forward and grips the man's shoulder. Ellery winces at the onslaught of heat, though Stiles knows it'll just be a weirdly shaped red mark by tomorrow. His breaths are coming more shallowly, and he either won't or can't pull his head up to meet Stiles's eyes. "Here's what you're gonna do. _You_ are going to drive straight to the Beacon Hills police station and turn yourself in to the first deputy you see. You're going to tell them the truth, everything you've told me and then some, and you're going to let them record it. Any details that might be relevant about that night, you tell them. Do you understand?"

The man nods, more frantically than Stiles would have thought him capable at this stage. He removes his hand from the man's shoulder. "You're in the middle of a heat stroke," Stiles adds matter-of-factly. "Headache, dizziness, nausea, rapid heartbeat, overheating, swea—ah, actually, looks like you stopped sweating. Not actually a great sign in the realm of human health." Ellery blinks once, languidly, and Stiles continues. "You're not gonna die, probably. Anyway, if— _if_ anyone asks, a heat stroke is all you're going to say happened today. 'Cause I forgot the last couple symptoms: disorientation, hallucinations, stuff like that...So. Let's say you had a change of heart after a near-death experience. No strangers involved. You get me?"

The man nods again.

"Great. We're friends, then. Hallucination-induced friends. _But._ If I hear anything otherwise...or if you ever get behind the wheel of a car after even a single sip of alcohol...I'll know, and I'll find you," Stiles adds. It's a total lie—that's not really his kind of magic—but this guy doesn't know that. "The next few questions might not be so nice. And if I hate your answers, I might let you burn for real, not just stuff for funsies."

The man doesn't reply—hell, he's right on the verge of passing out, so expecting clear speech is expecting a lot. But he does whimper, so that's a win.

Anyway, Stiles is done here. Once upon a time, he'd worried how he'd manage to get away from a victim after something like this, leaving before they managed to grab him. (Despite all his trickery, he's still basically a fragile human who happens to be able to burn people alive if he tries real hard and believes in himself...but strangulation would do him in just like the next guy.) By now, though, he knows at what stage people are way too out of it to tie their own shoes, let alone run after him. And they really _do_ seem to consider him a hallucination—which is for the best. No need to have them explain their guilt (or innocence, sometimes) to a judgemental maybe-hallucination _and_ come to terms with the existence of magic in the same day.

So, tired and lightly shivering, Stiles slips out of the car like normal. But, because he's really not trying to kill this guy, he opens the front driver side door wide. The truck's parked on a side street, but enough people are passing by that someone will eventually wonder about the dude slumped in his truck and come to Ellery's aid.

Two streets down, the road is closed off for a start-of-summer festival, which also spills over to the lawn of a nearby elementary school. The air bursts with the smell of freshly cut grass. Children slip and squeak down waterslides and parents fan themselves into a dull torpor in under the school awning.

Stiles rests his bat on his shoulder. Then, he slips into the crowd and disappears.

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Stiles is hot. And not in the _drop-dead gorgeous_ kind of way (okay but who's he kidding, he can be fucking adorable when he tries). It's more like the _drop-dead_ kind of way.

He gets it from his mom. _Got_ it from his mom.

Or more specifically, he got it from the summer fields of his mom's homeland. Not the cold winter Poland's so well known for, but the scorching hot summers, with crops burning gold under the sun and dust growing from the arid horizon. He gets it from a line of witch-creatures that once grew from the heat, their magic linked to the earth and sun and summer, a line reaching back to the first farms and fields of the early world.

This line once came with a sense of purpose and duty: protecting the land against those who abused it, questioning their motives. But like with most aspects of ancient magic in today's world, that original purpose had pretty much faded in time.

For one, Beacon Hills can be pretty dead sometimes, but it isn't a farming town, and Stiles and his mom never valued any field enough to dedicate their lives to protecting its crops. And really, Stiles's mother had never been a regular practitioner anyway. She'd lived in Beacon Hills most of her life, and after meeting Stiles's father, she'd never found it in herself to quest for justice or revenge as her family did. Up until last year, she'd spent her talents to support a more modern cause: the Beacon Hills Fire Department.

As a kickass firefighter and, eventually, the assistant fire commissioner, she knew more about heat and flames than virtually anyone else, both theoretical knowledge and a practical (if uncanny) to subdue rogue fires, like a lion tamer at work.

Once, Stiles used to be like that, too.

Till a year ago, his power existed, but it didn't own him. He only felt it as an affinity for long summer days, for the beach, for open fire pits in the dead of winter. He felt it as a dedication to questions and riddles and _learning_.

Now, though, things are different.

Now, his duty thrums in his veins, a very real burning somewhere below his heart. He needs it like he needs to breathe. And in the burgeoning summer heat, he feels it now more than ever.

Stiles is a _poludnica_. Once upon a time, people in Poland might have called his kind a Noon Witch, or a Midday Lady: a witch-creature they warned their children about, a thing of blinding white light that waited in the wheat fields for those foolish enough to pass by in the full heat of day. They were otherworldly beings with warped, mocking faces and grins that showed too many teeth. They walked in dust storms, radiated heat, demanded the answers to questions or even riddles that helped them judge a stranger's worth.

If Stiles is being honest, though, it's not just the _poludnica_ in his veins that drives him to do what he does. With his mother's murder and no answers to the only questions that matter about her death, he feels the need to do _something_ , to make _someone_ pay what they owe—even if it's not whoever owes his mother.

He's been doing his research on it, of course. When does he _not_? But finding leads on what happened to his mom is slow going. Unbearably slow.

And so he asks questions, and he hunts, and he burns.

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Halfway through her meal, Melissa pauses mid-bite, stands, and opens the window that leads from the McCalls' living room to the porch outside.

"I'm not sure if that's better or worse," she says as she settles back on the sofa to turn her absent gaze back to whatever trash ghost hunting travel show is on the TV. After pulling her dark hair off of her neck and into a ponytail, she goes back to attacking her eggs with gusto. "I called someone to come out and look at the air conditioner," she adds after a beat. "Either something's wrong, or it just can't keep up with this summer."

It doesn't have to mean anything. In general, Beacon Hills has seen record-breaking heat waves over the past few weeks. But Stiles makes a conscious (and slightly guilty) effort to rein in his own natural body heat anyway. "I told you we should have just gone for ice cream," he tells her nonchalantly, stuffing half a syrup-drenched pancake into his mouth. "Heating up the stove versus refrigerated food? Today? Easy win."

Melissa doesn't dignify this with a response. And really, given her professional (and of course personal) interest in keeping them both healthy, they're probably lucky she'd let Stiles make something as sugar-laden as pancakes.

Scott, who is wolfing down his own pancakes (chocolate chip, no less—Stiles had snuck those in pretty carefully), laughs into his coffee. "I'm not holding out for that."

Sunday breakfast-for-dinners have become a weird tradition for the three of them over the past year. Back when Melissa had first started insisting Stiles stay at the McCalls' as often as possible instead of the usually empty Stilinski residence, she'd also begun stuffing breakfast into Stiles and Scott before school whenever she could. If only to make sure Stiles was eating _something._ It's taken Stiles some time to appreciate the effort. And it's taken even longer to turn things around and show off his superior breakfast skills to earn a place as the designated cook.

Their busy work and school schedules eventually whittled their daily breakfasts to once a week: late Sunday afternoons right after Melissa's longest shift of the week. Stiles finds himself looking forward to it, even months after the start. It's one of the only times he really feels at home. He loves being here, draped over the sofa, the smell of greasy breakfast food in the air, the TV running on low in the background.

As one, Melissa and Scott snort at the overdone antics of the show. "It basically sounds like they only caught a bunch of static on the EVP and were so embarrassed they _made up_ something it said!"

"No, mom, they were _so_ helpful, they added subtitles so you can _obviously_ make out the words _time to die._ "

"Ugh." Melissa grabs the remote and changes the channel. The images dart past, and then she hesitates, thumb hovering over the button, and scrolls back down.

On the local news station is a headline that makes them all perk up—even Stiles, who'd known it was coming but hadn't known it would be so _fast._ A newscaster stands outside the Beacon Hills police station, with the lights of a pair of ambulances flashing in the background.

"Look at that," Scott breathes, reading the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen. "Ellery _turned himself in?_ "

Melissa turns up the volume.

"...offering a full confession to detectives with the Beacon Hills Police Department. Insider sources say that Ellery's health may have been a causative factor in this confession, and one source reports that he had to be helped into the police station, as he was and is suffering from severe dehydration and heat stroke. A medical team was called in about an hour ago, and while we have no follow up reports about his health, we can confirm that Ellery did, in fact, confess to hitting Rhea Gonzales in the fatal hit-and-run accident that made the papers back in May. If you remember, Gonzales was a university student visiting family at the time of the accident, and despite detectives' initial suspicions..."

There's no updated video of Ellery, just the same still images of him and Rhea Gonzales they've been using in the news for months. Stiles tries to imagine the man's face as he made the confession.

"Guess your dad will be busy today," Scott says slowly. "Think he'll have to take overtime for this?"

"I don't know," Stiles replies, frowning. "I haven't really talked to him in a day or two, so it wouldn't really make a difference." It's not the whole truth, mostly for Melissa's benefit. He and his dad have briefly glimpsed each other just a few times recently, but he hasn't actually _talked_ to his dad in a week, at best, and he knows that'll put a sad look on her face. Stiles clears his throat. "Anyway. I'm gonna head home tonight, actually—I wanna clean and run some laundry since Dad forgets."

Scott wipes his mouth with his sleeve. "We still headed for the movies or something tomorrow? Maybe in the afternoon? Alison and I are going out later that night."

"Can't wait," Stiles replies, shoving his plate into the dishwasher. "Don't get started without me."

.

This is how it always happens, if it happens: Stiles will be on the couch, and his father will come through the door, motion to the phone on his ear, and lock himself in the study to finish a pressing case. Or, Stiles will come home to find that the extra TV dinners he bought with this month's grocery money has slowly disappeared, replaced by constellations of empty beer bottles. Or, Stiles will guiltily hide his research at a creak on the stairs, only to realize it's just the house settling, not his father home from work.

Because his father is pretty much running himself ragged with work these days. Or maybe he's just _running_. Stiles can't really say he blames him, not after his mom died last year. Stiles is running too, but in a different way. A different direction.

Today, though, Stiles runs into his father quite literally on the way into his house. Fortunately, Sheriff Stilinski has enough experience with Stiles's clumsiness that he catches Stiles by the elbow before he can faceplant on the front steps.

"Dad!" Stiles exclaims, surprised, as he makes his way to his feet. "Thought you had the late shift today."

"Just had to run back here for a sec," the Sheriff replied. His smile is fond in light of Stiles's blundering, with age lines creasing his cheeks like dimples, but he quickly sobers. "Lotta overtime coming up in the next day or two. You heard about Ellery yet?"

"Yeah, yeah, I...Melissa and Scott and I just saw it on the news."

"Full confession. Everything we needed to know, all laid out. Completely unexpected." The way he says this is casual, but the searching look in his eyes is anything but. His next few statements aren't questions, not yet. But Stiles has the sense they may be growing in that direction. "Says...says he had a kind of heat stroke earlier today. Just sitting in his car, forgetting what time it was. A little strange, if you ask me."

"No, it's completely strange," Stiles agrees. "Guilty conscience? I'd've been going nuts if I was trying to keep something like that quiet. With that girl's parents and everything..."

At this, his father's face softens a bit. He shrugs. "Good thing you wouldn't have run from something that serious in the first place," he replies with certainty. This is probably true, Stiles thinks—he would have been way too eaten with guilt to flee that scene. His dad knows him pretty well, after all. Most of him, anyway.

His father's face is flushed, which could be from the warm sun, but Stiles suddenly has another suspicion. "So why'd you run back here again?"

"Picking up some paperwork I forgot," his dad replies easily. It's only half true enough: he _is_ holding a case file. But Stiles thinks that's not all of it, wonders if his dad's even aware of how often he picks up a drink without real thought. "You in for the night?"

Stiles nods, frowning. "Just wanted to get some peace and quiet. You know."

His father grimaces, again reading Stiles too well. "Leave something for me to do, will you? I know the dishes are piling up…"

"Dad, I got this," Stiles replies, rolling his eyes. His dad looks reluctant, tapping his case files restlessly against his leg. Finally, Stiles gives his dad a gentle shove down the sidewalk, grinning. "I have literally nothing to do all summer. You can make it up to me when school starts."

They both know he probably won't, that his schedule won't magically clear up in September. But it's nice to pretend, and they sink into the lie easily.

"Don't work too hard," his dad calls over his shoulder as he climbs into his cruiser. "Bed by nine. Not too much television. All that jazz."

"Yes, sir." Stiles mock-salutes, turning it into a quick wave as his dad pulls out of the driveway and turns onto the street.

.

For the last two days, Stiles has crashed in the McCalls' guest bedroom, having binge-watched an entire season of _The X-Files_ with Scott. Today, he finds more empty beer bottles in front of the TV, and an entire bottle of Jack Daniel's down to just a finger of whiskey in his dad's office. There are dirty plates too, across the coffee table and piled in the sink, and the laundry waits in a heap against the washer.

Stiles turns off the AC. Then he rolls up his sleeves and mindlessly gets to work, first on the laundry and then on the kitchen. The scattered bottles are the last to go.

"An awful lot of alcohol," someone comments from the corner of the living room.

Stiles jumps, losing his grip on the beer bottles he'd been carrying. They crash to the floor as he turns to see Peter sitting in his mother's armchair, which had been empty when he'd passed it a few minutes ago. It makes Stiles scowl fiercely, his anger quick and searing. "Do _none_ of you make any noise, or ask to be let in like normal people? And—how did you even get in here? "

"I don't think we _can_ be like normal people," Peter replies, though he does climb to his feet and walk into the light of the kitchen.

"What are you here for?" Stiles asks suspiciously. It's been a few months since Scott was accepted into the growing Hale pack, but Stiles's interactions with Peter have been pretty minimal. Mostly because Peter manages to be MIA at the best of times and creepy as fuck at the worst.

Look, Stiles knows better than most that everyone deals with grief in their own way. Whatever vices Peter chases to deal with his own grief must be different from the "just punch whatever moves" attitude of his obnoxious his niece and nephew. Plus, Stiles figures it's probably a big mindfuck for him to go from being his sister's beta to being _Laura's_ in the space of two years _._ And so Stiles doesn't know much about Peter except that he's quiet and stares too much and probably has a life that's about as shitty as Stiles's, just in a different way.

So he _gets_ Peter, on some level, but on a level that does not and has never included welcoming Peter into his home.

"My fault. Allow me," Peter replies, without really answering. He bends down to pick up the glass, and Stiles lets him, finding it interesting that Peter never really turns his back on him as he does so. Never turns his back on anyone really. "It's warm in here," the werewolf adds offhandedly, not pausing in his movements.

"It is."

"And do you always work in the dark like this?" Sure, Stiles does. The blinds are always drawn these days, to let Stiles and his father steep in their own misery.

Stiles doesn't really want to look at Peter's face, to see what he imagines will probably be pity there. Or hell, maybe not: Peter knows as well as anyone what it's like, being sentenced to remain in the house where someone you loved once lived.

"Peter, _what are you doing_ _here_?" Stiles repeats, exasperated.

The werewolf stands, smiling pleasantly. He holds the shards of glass in his cupped palms like a gift, but then he turns to tip them into the recycling bin. "Straight to the point, then. Well. I've realized we may share...a similar interest."

"And what's that?"

"I'd also like to know why my family died," Peter replies, looking Stiles straight in the face.

A slight chill runs down Stiles's shoulders, and for a moment, his mind races. Then, he shakes his head. "I don't get it," he retorts flatly.

"Of course you do. Your mother's murder remains unsolved. It wasn't hard to learn that you spend half of your time at your friend Scott's or at our house...but the other half you spend researching, either here or at the police station. I imagine you don't just sit in the waiting area filing your nails all day. And I suppose the key evidence, if you will, is that you bring your research to our house sometimes. Lots of notes on possible suspects and motives, that sort of thing."

"Okay. Let me just, like, break this down. One, what I do in my free time is my own business. And two, I'm not even going to ask if you've been following me or why you went through notes I had _in my backpack_ , and three, _my dad works there_ ," Stiles replies indignantly.

"Yes. But by your own admission, you don't see him often these days. So one has to ask: what other motivation could you have for waiting long hours at the police station multiple times a month?"

"And _definitely_ listening in on my conversations with Scott. Not creepy at all."

"I'm hardly trying to have you confess to murder, Stiles. Just to... _researching_ one. Potentially with better tools than most inquisitive werewolves have on hand."

At this, Stiles tilts his head as the pieces click into place. "Wait...are you, are you basically trying to ask me if I can help _you_ look into…" Stiles pauses. Stares. "What? The whole, um, fire thing?"

"Yes. The whole fire thing." Peter's face briefly becomes tight, like his skin is stretched too far over his cheeks and jaw. But after a moment, his expression morphs into a look of actual sorrow. "I understand...what it's like to look, and not find what you're looking for. Perhaps you already know I don't believe the fire was an accident. For many reasons. But among them...there were hunters in the area at the time. It also was only by chance that Derek, Laura, and I were not at home that night. And for none of the others to have escaped, with our regenerative abilities...it's possible, but not likely. That was enough for me to research, but not enough to get me through the brick wall of bureaucracy," he adds, face stony. "The hunters I've already looked into. But to learn what the police know, what they found in the way of evidence supporting my theory... _that's_ what I need.

"Derek and Laura know nothing of this," the werewolf adds after a beat. "They might have suspicions of their own for all I know, but none of us have ever spoken of them. And I'd rather no one confirmed _my_ suspicion."

Stiles nods slowly, still a little off-balance. "Then why are you telling _me_ this?" he asks, a little hoarsely.

"As I've said, I've hit a brick wall. The police seem resolved in thinking my suspicions are out of left field, because they've been about as useful as you'd expect. No offense."

Stiles ignores this. "And you think I'll help...what, by smuggling information out of my dad's work?"

"Won't you?" Peter challenges. Stiles realizes suddenly how close this could be to blackmail, except that he doesn't think that's what Peter's going for here. Hesitantly, Peter adds, "I imagine you do the same when researching your mother. Half the newspapers say her murder was random, the other half...well, the tabloids, mostly, but the circumstances do lend themselves to the imagination." He pauses. "What do _you_ think happened?"

The question is one Stiles wasn't aware he wanted to be asked. In just a millisecond, he goes from skeptical and annoyed to intrigued. "I think it was premeditated," he hears himself say automatically, after a short pause.

Because he never talks about this. Not with _anyone._ Scott and Melissa dance around the subject like Stiles might explode if they bring it up, the Hale pack cares about the topic just enough to send him looks of intense pity sometimes, and with his father...well, just no. So Stiles has a lot of practice keeping this part of his life tightly bottled up.

But he suddenly finds himself _wanting_ to talk about it, wanting to explain the research that has absolutely devoured every waking and most sleeping moments.

Wanting to explain to someone who, he realizes, might actually understand. Peter is looking at him expectantly, but his face doesn't show the keen sympathy or care of someone who worries the question might break something in Stiles. He looks curious, nothing more. And curiosity is a trait Stiles recognizes. One he can work with.

"My mom...she'd worked her way up to assistant fire chief. And so she didn't always suit up for stuff anymore. But she was trained as an EMT. The 911 dispatch got this call one afternoon, saying someone with a medical emergency a few blocks away from her station needed a defibrillator. So my mom goes, maybe just by chance...because most of the department's across town working on a three-alarm fire that later turns out to be arson. She's not even on location in the truck when someone shoots through the front window. It kills her instantly. They catch the guy, Tyler Mendez, this rando with a rap sheet as long as my lifetime, and he's not talking, but it doesn't matter because he mysteriously winds up hanging in his cell the next day."

The kitchen is quiet, both Stiles and Peter briefly suspended in time.

"So no," Stiles says quietly. "Some people say it was just a random shooting, 'cause the guy's profile makes him seem like a nut. But I don't...I don't believe that. Maybe Dad really does, we've never...we don't really talk about this at all. Like, ever. And I've never heard him mention any other investigation, so probably he took it as a suicide and not a suspicious death. But, for me..."

"You think someone killed him. To keep him quiet."

"I think it's possible."

Peter hums. "And by that thread, there might have been a reason your mother died."

"Yes. I think... _someone_ knows something. Someone _here._ In Beacon Hills, maybe even someone I know. I don't know what the reason could be for wanting my mom to die, not yet. But I've been trying to recreate what she was doing in the months before she died, who she talked to, who she met. She didn't keep a journal, but she has notes that Dad—well, he doesn't like the thought of going through her stuff, really, so I kinda made copies of all the stuff that was on her desk and then snuck it all back."

"I see," Peter replies slowly. "What kind of notes?"

Stiles opens his mouth to answer, then stops. He stares. The werewolf appears nonchalant, but the hairs stand up on the back of Stiles's neck as he realizes the connection Peter is suggesting. "The categories of fires over the past few years," Stiles says weakly. "Mom was responsible for filing reports about the emergencies the fire department responded to. Including things like the type of fire—natural or wood-based, electrical. Arson."

Peter, weirdo that he is, has the beginning of a smirk on his face. "I've started to realize: I don't know whether there's a connection between your tragedy and mine," he begins. "But at the very least, two heads are better than one. We might at least bounce theories off of each other. Don't you agree?"

"You think there's a connection. Between...if your fire wasn't an accident, and if my mom…"

"I think it's possible."

Stiles rubs his forehead, wary of the potential for manipulation. This is _Peter Hale,_ after all. He once manipulated all the betas into ordering only Hawaiian pizza, just for fun, like some kind of demon.

But at last, Stiles nods. Because maybe this is a lifeline he didn't even know he needed. "It's hard to do this in a vacuum," he admits finally. "Some days...I think I'll go off the deep end if I have to read another line." He looks at Peter warily. "I can get you copies of my mom's stuff, but I don't have everything. Just the stuff she had on hand at home. Getting stuff from the police station is harder, 'cause I'm mostly limited to snooping on what's on peoples' desks or _really_ rarely, if no one's around, I can peek in a filing cabinet or in the database records. But that's really slow going."

"But it's going," Peter replies, his smirk in full now. "Which is all I can ask. I might have some...questions for you. Over the next few days. Perhaps we can talk next time you come to the house with Scott."

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Thank God. If I have to watch another stupid pissing contest between Derek and Scott during training again, I'll scoop my eyes out with a spork. Let's definitely to do it then."

"It's a date," Peter says politely.

Stiles frowns, fidgeting with the rest of the empty bottles. Just for something to do, he moves to throw them into the recycling bin. "Peter," he says suddenly. "Why are you asking me, really? I mean, _me._ I know what you said, but I'm just some kid. We've like, killed some pixies together once and you've seen me butting heads with Laura on a regular basis. But you barely know me. And seriously, don't pretend you guys aren't loaded enough to hire a private investigator with _actual_ clearance to get police files, and fast. I've been in your house, and it's a McMansion compared to this place."

Peter inclines his head, looking thoughtful. "You're right," he concedes slowly. "I barely know you. But I know enough about you. You have to understand, my priority is to get answers, but to get them _safely,_ without exposing...what's left of the pack, to potential threats _._ If I'm right that the fire wasn't an accident, there's no way to know who to trust here. I suppose...in watching to see what you were up to, I realized that you must know what that's like. And that you obviously know how to keep a secret."

Peter says this casually, so casually that Stiles honestly cannot tell whether he means it simply in a _you're-looking-into-your-mother's-death_ kind of secret, or a _you're-not-actually-human_ kind of secret.

Because that part isn't something Stiles is ready to talk about. He turns away for a moment, busying himself with the bag of recyclables.

It's true that sometimes he thinks he should have told the others. Maybe not before his mom died, back when he didn't know anyone else who _was_ a supernatural being. But definitely after his mom died, and Scott was bitten by a psychotic rogue werewolf that Peter eventually put down, he could have said something. It had been such a welcome distraction from his grief a few months in, suddenly having to help Scott with his whole new "Yer a werewolf, Scottie" thing. And at some point, he probably should have said "Surprise, here's this super weird thing about me, too!"

But here's the other thing: it's not really about what he _is,_ but what he _does_ with it. Before he'd started using it on actual people, it might have been a cool party trick to pull out of his pocket. Now, he just doesn't want anyone to start connecting the dots. He's been careful, he's only gone after a handful of people who deserved it, but the last thing he needs is to explain himself when he barely understands himself anyway, some days.

"I don't…" Stiles begins, turning around to face Peter. Who is nowhere to be seen. The kitchen is empty, as is the adjoining living room. His mother's armchair faces him still, unoccupied. "Damn it, Peter," Stiles gripes under his breath, knowing the werewolf can probably still hear him. And then, because he can't help it: "Wow, so this is what Jim Gordon feels like all the time."

It doesn't really matter, though. At this point, Peter's given Stiles more than enough to think about.

.

.

.

stiles: umm, so how did you get in and how are you leaving?

peter: don't worry about it


	2. Under the Summer Sun

.

 **Two – Under the Summer Sun**

.

Stiles hates approximately two-thirds of the Hale pack. Well, _hates_ is a strong word. Maybe _resents_ is closer to the truth.

As he and Scott pull up to the Hale house a few days later, he can already feel the headache creeping right up between his eyes. Derek's back is to them, shoulders rigid and arms folded in front as he watches the new(er) betas, Erica and Boyd and Jackson, in their sparring match.

"Don't be like that," Scott gripes, unfastening his seat belt. He keeps his voice low, though there's almost no chance anyone's actually paying attention to them. "Your face is already doing the thing."

"What thing?" Stiles says, smoothing away his scowl. His voice is just as quiet. "There's no thing."

"Okay, Stiles. Just...look, I know the Hales aren't really your favorite. You really don't have to…"

"I know. I want to be here," Stiles retorts quickly, before Scott can start feeling guilty about something that is 100% the fault of Stiles and his stupid inability to let shit go. "This is the pack, you're in the pack, I'm with you. I'm always with you. It's simple math."

This is the abbreviated version of an argument they've had several times in the past, so they both know how it ends. But it's worth it just to see Scott's puppy dog eyes. "Yeah, okay," his friend says, slipping out of the car. "Thanks, man."

Source of resentment _numero uno_ turns to face them as they cross the open lawn. "You're late," Laura says. Her long hair is pulled off of her shoulders and into a ponytail, and she's standing in the shade of an oak, shoulders against the trunk.

"Wasn't aware there was a set schedule for suffering," Stiles mutters under his breath. He can feel the summer sun, high overhead, thrumming in his veins. It makes him bold, restless.

Laura's mouth quirks in haughty amusement. "Wasn't talking to you anyway," she says. It's clear to Stiles what she really means, because Stiles is only pack by association, pack because of Scott.

And that's the biggest part of the resentment. Not the second-class citizen thing—he couldn't care less about being part of their super-secret werewolf club—but that he'd had to campaign for so long just to get Scott accepted _at all._ Back when Scott had first been bitten, a little over a year after the Hale fire and a few months after Stiles's mom died, things had been really rough. He and Scott had had to figure out a lot of shit on their own, with Stiles pulling himself out of his own grief to research the hell out of lycanthropy.

It had only been by chance that they'd found out the Hales were werewolves. Scott, new to his powers, had almost wolfed out at a lacrosse match, and Derek had approached to gruffly threaten him about it right after (what were you thinking, people might find out about us, hunters might come, blah blah blah). Of course, Derek probably hadn't known at the time that to Scott and Stiles, he'd basically come out of nowhere like a freaking _savior_ : Scott was struggling with his powers so much that he and Stiles had both practically begged the Hales to train him.

But grief had made shut-ins of the Hale family. _Fuck off,_ Laura had told them on more than one occasion. _Figure it out for yourselves._

If the situation wasn't so dire, with Scott struggling to manage daily activities like PE and surviving Jackson Whittemore, they might have given up in the face of the Hales' apathy. It was something Stiles hated them for, because he'd had to watch Scott die a little inside every day the stress weighed him down. Only when the Argents came to town did Laura finally take Scott into the pack's protection for training, proving that even _she_ had enough humanity left not to leave a new omega 'wolf to the hunters. Plus, building up the pack suddenly seemed like a smart idea with their new, armed neighbors.

These days, things are pretty good between all of them. Or at least everyone's pretending it's all sunshine and rainbows, anyway. Scott's grown on the pack members—this is _Scott_ , after all. And Scott pretty much forgave them for everything the second they let him in, so that _us-against-the-world_ thing he and Stiles once had going on is now pretty much restricted to only Stiles. Nowadays, the only reason Scott really butts heads with the pack is over Allison and whether or not Scott should be dating her, but Stiles counts the lack of recent bloodshed as a small win.

Scott ambles toward the sparring session with just a brief nod at Derek. It both warms Stiles' heart and irritates the hell out of him to see the other betas part a little, making room for Scott almost instinctively, a drop of water returning to the sea.

Stiles and Scott usually show up in the evenings, and Stiles always retreats to the porch, pulling out his notes and muttering under his breath. Today, though, Stiles is disappointed to find that Peter's nowhere to be seen. He'd been weirdly nervous about coming, and anxious to hear more about whatever Peter wants him to look into. And it's just before noon, the sun high overhead, and a surge of energy and anticipation is flooding through him, as though he's been unexpectedly asked to fill in at a lacrosse game (as if).

Derek raises an eyebrow at him. "What, you joining today, professor?" Stiles has a habit of sticking his nose into a book or his notes every time he's here, and of asking a billion questions, so the nickname fits him. Derek's gaze sweeps up and down Stiles just once, a _you-were-still-pretty-fragile-last-I-heard_ kind of look, but Stiles doesn't take it personally. He resents Derek slightly less than Laura, anyway. Mostly because it isn't like Derek's calling the shots, though he did keep his mouth resolutely shut the whole time Stiles and Scott were out here begging.

"No," Stiles replies slowly, squinting up at the cloudless sky. "I'm thinking of going for a run. Just through the preserve or something."

Erica whoops, golden hair whipping as she rolls her shoulders. She makes up one part of the new beta fivesome that Stiles resents less than Derek, mostly because they're new and just happen to be learning stupidity from the Hales, not having been born into it. The others being staunch and quiet Vernon Boyd, asshole Jackson Whittemore, timid Isaac Lahey, and perfect Lydia Martin, who had turned out to be a banshee, was immediately accepted into the pack when she followed Jackson to join them, never shows up for training, and only _just_ started giving Stiles the time of day.

Stiles realizes after a beat that Erica's enthusiasm is directed at him _._ "That's what I'm talking 'bout," she pants. "I'm tired of cracking skulls. Let's do something else."

"It's five million degrees," Jackson protests, grunting as he tries to pull out of Boyd's headlock. "You gotta be shitting me."

Boyd shrugs, ever easygoing, and lets Jackson loose. Like the rest of them, his shirt is dark with sweat. "If we're out here anyway, might as well. It's good endurance training."

Stiles hadn't meant he wanted company, but it looks like this is unfortunately happening. "Don't go far," Laura calls, heading back to the house—and at least that's one small blessing, that Laura's not joining.

"C'mon," Erica says, tossing a grin over her shoulder. "Can't let Stiles outrun us."

It's obviously meant as a joke, and not even a mean one. Because that's the thing: Stiles holds them all at arm's length, but with the exception of Laura, the pack is about as amiable toward Stiles as their respective personalities allow.

But joking or not, Stiles isn't going to let it slide so easily. "Oh, it's on," he retorts, and Erica barks out a laugh. As she takes off into the woods, Stiles keeps hot on her heels, feet pounding the dry earth.

The others, half of whom have wolfed out, howl through the green forest. It's kind of a rush, in a way, crashing through the foliage in the balmy air, charged with the sunlight from above. Stiles loses himself in it for a while, breaths coming quickly and worries burning away. He isn't exactly an athlete, but in the summers, he _wants_ to be. He _could_ be. Something about the light of the sun or the height of his powers makes him feel whole again. Closer to his mom, even. Or just closer to she was, and whatever he's supposed to be.

The trail is unmarked but well-trodden, meandering through trees and meadows toward a small pond to the east. He's not sure how long it takes him to stop to catch his breath, only that he can hear the others a little ways behind. At last, they burst through the trees, Erica and Scott laughing and Boyd smiling indulgently. Even Jackson looks less like he just sucked a lemon.

"What the hell, man?" Scott says, a wide grin on his face as they catch up to Stiles. "You seriously took off."

Stiles shrugs, but he can't help but return the smile. "Needed to blow off some steam."

"Good to know you can run like hell if you ever need," Erica comments.

"You've seen him with a baseball bat, too" Scott shrugs. "He's a psycho."

Stiles decides to take this as a compliment.

They walk in the direction of the pond, dry grass crunching underfoot. Of all people, it's Isaac who pushes Erica into the water; she comes up sputtering and laughing, and then it's basically second grade P.E. Jackson, initially too prissy to get wet, is pulled in by Scott, and it's a mark of how far in their friendship the two of them have come that Jackson only curses him out for half a minute or so before retaliating.

Stiles jumps in of his own accord, knowing that he's probably running too hot and needs to cool down anyway. The water's a murky green, with reeds and cattails rimming one edge of the pond and a pebbled beach on the other. He mostly keeps away from the others, whose roughhousing is actually a little too rough for his fragile human bones, thanks, and lazily swims in the shallows instead.

Eventually, he grows bored enough to swim over to where Derek sits apart from the pack, stretched out on the wooden dock that juts into the middle of the pond.

"Dude. Your face looks like you're trying to set me on fire," Stiles says coolly. "Which is harder than it seems, trust me. What are you thinking about?"

Derek grunts. "The water near you looked weird for a second. Like bubbles from a fish or something."

Stiles looks down, checking to make sure the water isn't _actually_ simmering. It's probably pretty close. He clears his throat and changes the subject. "Have you seen Peter around today?"

Derek grunts again, squinting in the sunlight. "No. But that doesn't mean much. He comes and goes. Why?" he adds curiously.

Floating on his back, Stiles casts about for a good answer and finds nothing. "No reason." Ironically, despite his ability to ask the hard-hitting questions and consider the truth of the answers...he's a pretty shit liar. He doesn't even have to look at Derek to read the skepticism rolling off of him. A half-truth is probably better than no truth, he decides. "Well, he's actually sort of helping me. With some research, I mean."

The werewolf says nothing. He watches the other betas try to dunk each others' heads into the water. When they're like this, playing around, it's almost easy to forget that they could probably rip a car in half if they needed to. Or bite through bone. Or jump out of a flaming building.

"Do you think about the fire?" Stiles blurts suddenly, and Derek turns back to face him. One thing Stiles hates about himself is the way he doesn't always have a second to filter out the questions before he asks them. "I mean, uh—"

"Not the way Peter does," Derek says at last. "Not to figure out what caused it."

There's a long pause. Stiles swims a little closer. "Then you know what he's doing?"

"He's not always as secret as he thinks. Laura and I both figured it out, but we decided not to say anything. It's just...for me, I can't even think about that as a possibility. It's too soon. Or else it's too personal. Wondering if there was more to it, or how they all died that way…" his voice grows quiet, as though he doesn't want to say that part aloud. "It just feels worse. Some days, I'm barely…" he pauses again. Shakes his head. "It just makes it worse," he says finally.

This is probably more than Stiles has ever heard Derek say all at once in the entire time he's known him. He frowns, transfixed, until he realizes he's falling into the _poludnica_ state of mind, considering all the facets of Derek's answer, turning the words over in his head, and probably making the beta super uncomfortable.

"I get that," Stiles replies, before it can get any more awkward. "It's...my dad's the same way, I think. Or, I don't know, we've never really talked about it. He never talks about my mom at all, like ever. Well, we don't talk much these days anyway. He, um...we used to. To talk. Obviously, I mean, he's my dad. But after mom died, he sort of shut down hardcore. He works all the time, I think so he doesn't have to think about anything else. So yeah, we don't talk anymore, and I don't really have anyone to talk to about that stuff. Like, there's Scott and Melissa, obviously—Melissa, Scott's mom, you know—but it's not really the kind of thing you talk about with like...someone who actually has an okay life. So it would be better if I talked to my dad, since both of us are dealing with the same things, but I can't do that, so Peter's better than nothing. Or at least...yeah. Babbling. Sorry."

Derek shrugs. "No, that makes sense. Peter thinks the fire wasn't an accident. You think your mom's death wasn't random."

Stiles stares. "Yeah...but how did you…?"

"You talk to yourself _a lot,_ " Derek says, amused. "I guess you don't realize how much. But you go over those papers while you wait for Scott and basically whisper all of your thoughts to yourself."

"Oh my god," Stiles says, mortified. "It's a bad habit, okay? I didn't think anyone was paying attention. And _—_ well, you aren't supposed to _listen._ Use your werewolf superpowers only for good, okay?"

"It's hard when you do it _all the time—"_

" _Any_ way—"

"Anyway. Is that why you hang out here so much?"

"I hang out here because Scott hangs out here, and where Scott goes, I go."

"You hate it here."

Well, if they're being honest. "I don't _hate_ it, hate it. It's just...not my favorite place. And I think the feeling's mutual between me and Alpha Laura." Stiles says the last part airily, floating on his back a little to look up at the sky.

Derek grimaces. He hesitates for a moment, like he's trying to choose his words carefully. "Look, the truth is, Laura's just... _mad._ Because you were totally right about Scott at a time when she had no idea what the hell she was doing. Don't _ever_ tell her I said that."

"What do you mean?"

"Laura didn't think she was going to be the alpha for a long time. Maybe even decades, ideally. She's holding it together as much as she can, but she wasn't exactly ready to take on the job. Plus, her betas included...well, Peter, who's off the reservation half the time, and me. Making me the best and only second she really has. And _I_ don't know what we're supposed to be doing either. Which doesn't matter because she's not listening to me anyway. So most days the two of _us_ are biting each others' heads off half the time."

And if _that_ isn't a revelation, Stiles doesn't know what is. He doesn't even know how to react to that, treading water quietly for a minute until he can pull some words together. "I never really thought about that," he admits. "I mean she always seemed like she was just being stubborn, but I guess the situation is kinda shit."

Derek doesn't immediately reply to this. He's watching the betas again. Stiles, now quite cooled down, has grown tired. He grabs hold of one edge of the dock and struggles out of the water, which is more of a feat now that he isn't running hot anymore.

"I never talk about this stuff," Derek says slowly. He doesn't sound accusing, more like he's just mildly amazed, but the words shoot through Stiles like an arrow to the gut. He needs to get a grip on his powers, stop with all the questions. It just doesn't help that he's naturally curious, always ready to ask, so any conversation has the potential to bring out his magic, to turn into an interrogation.

"Sorry," he says, and then realizes how stupid that sounds to someone who has no idea why he's apologizing. "For bringing it up, I mean," he amends.

Derek shrugs. "For what it's worth," he says, still not looking at Stiles as he pants breathlessly into the tepid air, "it's cool that you're looking into that stuff with Peter. I'm not...I couldn't do it," he says, a little self-deprecating. "I don't have the guts."

Stiles frowns. "Guts have nothing to do with it," he replies bitterly. And it's true: nothing in his search has anything to do with strength at all. Instead, it's something sour and sharp, a part of who he is, both the _poludnica_ and part of Stiles himself. He pauses, then pulls himself to his feet.

They head back. For once, the air between Stiles and Derek isn't strained. They walk behind the tireless betas in a comfortable silence, Stiles's mind flitting from thought to thought. "What's a second?" he asks suddenly. "Does that make Peter a third?"

Derek, if he's startled by the question, doesn't show it. "No, there's just an alpha and his or her second. The advisor, or I guess second-in-command. Peter could be, if he tried. He'd probably be better at it, or at least know more about it than I do. But he's not here enough to rely on, so there's only me."

"Okay." Stiles chews on this for a while. They walk on in relative silence, Stiles half-listening to the betas' conversations. The further they go, the more distracted he gets. Random strings of thoughts and questions spill into his head. "Do you know what you're most likely to die of if you go to jail?" he asks Derek suddenly.

At this, the werewolf's brow furrows. "No…?"

"If you're in a local prison, it's suicide. In state prisons, it's usually cancer, but in the smaller ones like the one here it's like...one-third suicide deaths. Which is why there are so many prevention measures in place, 'cause you're like four times more likely to try for suicide in jail than you are if you're just, you know, in the general population." Stiles hums while Derek processes this, and then another thought occurs to him. "Between the hunters and werewolves in Beacon Hills, who do you think is best trained?"

Derek frowns, and he takes the question seriously, at least. "For now...probably the hunters. The pack is still new, but the way things used to be, we would have crushed them in a fight."

"If you're wondering how the questions are connected, don't," Scott says suddenly, turning around. Stiles hadn't realized that the rest of the pack had grown quiet. "He does this all the time."

"Shut up, Scott," Stiles grumbles, reddening a bit as the betas laugh. He realizes that it's the first time they've really talked, he and Derek, about anything besides training. And then, since he's already started: "If you killed someone and had to get away with it, how would you hide the bodies?"

This one's not really an actual question he needs an answer to; he mostly tossed it out for shock value. But after they get past the token claims of repulsion, the betas actually kind of jump onto it. It's enough to really get them going, Isaac deciding he'd find a way to get bits of them down the drain, Erica saying she'd bring them out to the really remote land of the preserve.

And then Stiles is on to the next question, and the next. The day is still hot, the sun gleaming overhead. By the time they get back to the Hale house, a small cloud of dust lingers on the horizon, and Stiles has to rein his powers back in again.

They tramp into the kitchen to fill up on water. Stiles catches himself laughing at something Erica says, and then he comes to the sudden realization that this afternoon has been almost _nice._ Which has never happened to him in the whole of his history out here in the preserve. It's enough to make him feel abruptly discomfited, so he's not totally unhappy to see Peter pass by the doorway, glancing at Stiles pointedly before he disappears.

Stiles slips after him. He follows Peter upstairs—Stiles, who has only been in the kitchen and living room before, takes a moment to note the paneled floors in the long hallway, the bare walls, the sparse furniture. And then he's stepping into an office, and the werewolf closes the door behind him.

"It's partially sound-proofed," Peter explains. "We've always had them done this way, for the sake of privacy."

"So what you're saying is that you could kill me and no one would hear."

Peter stares. "I wouldn't need a sound-proofed room to do that to you, Stiles."

"Fair enough," Stiles replies, trying not to look as unsettled as he feels. He looks around the room, at the layers of documents spread across the oak desk, crumpled pages on the floor, the bulletin board lined with photos, dates, newspaper clippings. "Oh my god. You're _actually_ not fucking around, you have one of those serial killer bulletin boards. But without the red string connecting all the pictures."

"The thread's all in the mind," Peter replies vaguely. He pulls a piece of paper from the desk and holds it out to Stiles. "This is what I need from you."

Stiles takes the page, skimming the words. "Insurance?" he wonders aloud. "This...huh. His name sounds familiar."

"Garrison Myers. Former insurance agent. Currently one of several bus drivers for Beacon Hills High."

"Oh. _Oh._ Yeah, I think this is the guy who used to drive Scott's route before we started taking the Jeep to school."

"He investigated the house fire," Peter explains, lowering himself into the seat at the desk with forced nonchalance. "Eventually, it was ruled accidental."

Stiles looks up at him. "So you think…?"

"There are two possibilities: first, that someone made the arson look enough like an accident that an insurance agent wouldn't recognize the signs. Certainly possible, and insurance mistakes aren't uncommon. I've been digging into the possibility. But the second possibility…"

"...is that he recognized it as arson but ruled it as an accident anyway," Stiles finishes. He looks down at the paper in his hands. Myers is old-ish, hair a little grey. In the photo, he looks coolly at the camera, unsmiling. "What am I doing with this?"

"I want to know what the police know about him. His prior record, history, known associates, whatever they have. Because right now, that's the sum total I know about him, other than the fact that he eats too much fast food and he's scrambling to pay alimony."

"Great. Not asking how you know that." Stiles toys with the edges of the paper, curiosity already boiling inside of him. "I'll hang out around the station and see when I have the chance to check him out. But...you know the saying 'the wheels of justice turn slowly?' These are gonna be like, the slowest justice wheels you ever saw."

At this, Peter smirks. "Do you know the full saying? 'The wheels of justice turn slowly...but grind exceedingly fine.'"

Stiles' mouth quirks upward without his permission. "Okay, then. Provided we can prove anything."

Peter's smirk only sharpens at the edges, but then he grows solemn. "Proof means nothing to me," he tells Stiles seriously. "If this is a man who had anything to do with the fire that killed my family, I will crush him into dust, one way or another."

It's a warning, and Stiles understands it clearly: _if this is too much for you, now's the time to back out_. But Stiles, though he can't articulate it in words, completely agrees with this. He should be running scared, and if he were a normal kid, he probably would be. But Stiles feels the same about his mother, and about anyone who may have tried to hurt her. If no formal sentencing comes out of this, whether for lack of evidence or for fraud or corruption, he'll find a way to take things into his own hands if he has to.

So he nods. "One way or another," he agrees coolly.

.

.

.

 **A/N:** Btw, I meant to say this before…feel free to look up the poludnica myth, but this story will butcher it more than Disney's Hercules butchered every Greek myth ever, so take it with a grain of salt.


	3. A Measure of Trust

.

 **Three – A Measure of Trust**

.

The fact that Stiles spends so much time hanging out at the police station, in the middle of his summer break, invokes a _lot_ of pity in the officers on staff.

Mostly, it's just sympathetic glances or those pointed "So how _are_ you doing?" kinds of questions. Probably they've all guessed the number one most likely reason he's there: he wants to be closer to his dad. And Stiles's dad is always either shut in his office or running around with cases, so their interactions are brief even here, where the sheriff spends most of his time. Which makes Stiles look like some poor, tragic figure, grieving his mother and clinging to his sort-of-absent-or-absentminded father.

Which is pretty much what Stiles is, probably. But that's also the image he's going for.

Officer Russell makes sure to save him a muffin from the morning staff meetings when he's around. Stiles knows all the cleaning ladies by name and occasionally lets them rope him into their daily gossip. Detectives Hart and Janire shoot the shit with him on break, talking about comic books or recent movies. Stiles even got a card signed by everyone in the office on his birthday.

Basically, Stiles is right in that sweet spot of "non-threatening boss's kid" (meaning people don't tell him what to do or that he should get lost), and "little lost puppy" (meaning they'll go out of their way to help or joke with him sometimes). Not to brag or anything, but he feels like he's pretty well-liked, mostly because he's never lost the ability to fake his old grin, and because his tragic backstory earns him bonus points. Most importantly, no one censors themselves around him. He fades into the space like an office plant, whether he's hanging out at reception or in the back office.

Over the next two weeks, Stiles sits, listens, and waits for his chance. He sees Peter occasionally at the Hale house, but a shake of his head is all that's needed for the werewolf to slink back off to wherever he'd been, unappeased. And Stiles sits in the shadow of the porch, distractedly running through his mother's notes, the timeline of fires in the county, new interdepartmental policies, increased EMS training.

And the outliers: the rap sheets of a few men, which Claudia must have gotten from his dad. Stiles has never found that connection, but some days, he pulls the papers out to have another look.

Today, Stiles leaves a late lunch salad for his dad with the office secretary and wanders off, fidgeting in his habitual niche in the bullpen, atop a row of hip-height filing cabinets lining the east wall. This is also coincidentally the only place with windows that let in the harsh afternoon sunlight. Deputy Connors, whose desk is closest, likes to compare Stiles to a cat chasing sunbeams. The metaphor isn't inaccurate.

Stiles has gotten pretty good at reading the atmosphere here, whether things are upbeat enough for him to draw someone into conversation, or whether the mood's too focused for interruption. But the officers seem sapped of energy today, lethargic and sluggish in their work.

"What is it?" Stiles asks Connors, a lean man with a squirrely beard. "There's no one here."

Connors, hunched over a report, shrugs without looking up. "There's a 417 in the county over. Sheriff sent backup to help out. It's under control now, but the rest of us are holding down the fort 'till they're back."

Stiles grunts. "Dad's out too?"

"No, he's in his office." Connors swivels to peer at him, resting one skinny elbow on the cushioned back. "Sure he'll have to come up for air sooner or later, man."

"Sure. Just had to check," Stiles says casually. His phone chimes, and he glances at it to find a text message from Peter Hale, whose number Stiles most definitely did not program into it. He idly wonders when and how Peter managed to get through his passcode. "I brought him a salad for lunch, so he's gonna hate me. I'm torn between staying to check that he eats it and leaving so he doesn't bite my head off," Stiles jokes.

Connors snorts. "That reminds me, you missed it. Yesterday, he ripped this reporter a new one for getting too pushy...you know that Channel 4 girl, the one with the blonde hair? Well, we're out on a call behind those shops on Oak Park and Veterans, the crime scene's real messy and all, and the Sheriff's—"

"Connors!" A voice barks, and both Stiles and Conners jump in unison. It's just Deputy Vargas, though, her face drawn into its normal expression of either irritation or disgust. "We just got a call for a domestic. Non-emergency, but we'd probably better get a jump on it. I'll fill you in on the road." Connors rises, and she turns to Stiles. "It sounded like the Sheriff was swamped earlier," she tells him. "Not sure he'll be out soon."

But Stiles isn't going anywhere, not now. With Vargas and Connors leaving, the only other officers in the bullpen are the two newbie hires and Deputy Thornton, who's half-dozing over his coffee. It's the best chance he's had in ages to slip into the filing room. "That's ok, maybe he'll take a break in a little while. If not, I'll head over to Scott's or something."

He's so excited that he doesn't even care about the pitying looks both deputies send his way. But Vargas hesitates and turns back before she gets to the door. "Stiles, I, uh...I was on a patrol a few days ago and thought I saw you on the preserve? You should be careful out there."

Stiles blinks. "It's fine. Scott and I just hang out with the Hales sometimes," he replies, feeling the weird taste of the words "hang out with the Hales" in his mouth. "We're not getting mauled by mountain lions or anything."

"The Hales are what I'm talking about," Vargas explains slowly. "They're not...you should be careful. Around them."

At this, Stiles perks up. "What do you mean?"

The corners of Vargas's mouth pull down further. "The oldest one, Peter—we almost got him on a B&E charge a couple months back, but the evidence didn't hold. He strikes me as kind of a sleazeball. And the other two aren't much better." Stiles finds himself surprisingly irritated for reasons he doesn't understand, but he gives her a slow nod. "Besides," she adds, before he can answer her, "does your Dad know you're spending time out there?"

This last question breaks the unspoken code Stiles has with the Beacon Hills Deputies. Namely: no one rats on Stiles for normal teenager stuff like skipping last period or a mention of underage drinking in one of his stupid anecdotes. Mostly because these were the kinds of things he'd always told his mom about when she was alive anyway, and she'd been so obviously unfazed that no one else had been bothered either.

"He doesn't," Stiles says slowly. "But he doesn't know a lot about me these days. We don't really talk much, as much as I try to get in his face, if you can believe it."

There's a flash of guilt on her face, which flushes pink. Stiles is oddly gratified that she nods stiffly and turns to go. Connor gives him a "Later, man," and then Stiles is alone.

Mostly, anyway. He glances at the new deputies and then at his phone, swiping to Peter's text.

Peter:  
Updates?

Stiles pauses, then types out a response.

Stiles:  
maybe soon  
what did you do to make one of the deputies call you a sleazeball

He waits, but Peter doesn't message him back. The office is quiet.

When he was younger, Stiles always imagined the filing room would be kinda like the warehouse in Raiders of the Lost Ark: dim and dusty, with neatly stacked crates and documents labeled Top Secret. The reality is a bit messier. There are shelves full of files and cardboard boxes, with a consistent but convoluted filing system across the board.

Luckily, Stiles doesn't need to know the analog part of their system. He's just here for the computer in the corner. The room's for archives, not everyday use, and it's less likely someone will catch him accessing the database from here.

With a memorized login swiped from Deputy Tekka, he's in. It takes him a while to navigate the system, but he gets there eventually: Garrick Myers, 57 years old. His employment record up through the last few years has him climbing the career ladder in the insurance industry before an abrupt jump to bus driving a while back. As Stiles skims the rest of the report—financial info, drug testing, clean driving record—he realizes a potential reason for the jump. There, right in the criminal record: Myers was sentenced to supervised probation for several counts of insurance fraud. Two years ago. Right around the time of the Hale house fire.

Whatever the investigation uncovered hadn't dug up enough evidence to be made public, or to warrant an arrest...but it's enough information for Stiles to send Peter's way. More than enough, Stiles realizes as he skims the rest. The police suspicions were pretty intense, and Myers had been lucky there wasn't enough solid evidence to put him in jail. He'd been suspected of setting up arson fraud under the table, making it easy for desperate homeowners drowning in debt to pay him to set up a house fire, thus allowing them to take the ensuing insurance payout.

And he'd worked with at least a few other associates, too...Stiles's breath catches in his throat as he reads the rest.

"You're not supposed to be here," someone says from behind him. Stiles spins to find Vargas peeking into the room from the doorway, looking pissed. "What are you doing?"

"Just something I wanted to check online," Stiles says, quickly logging out before she can see the screen. "Uh, I didn't want to use someone's desktop computer, and my dad's still in his office, so…"

"You're not supposed to be here," Vargas repeats. "This is a filing room with evidence, and you're—"

"Right, got it, going," Stiles interrupts loudly, playing the part of the obnoxious teenager. "My phone died, I was just on Facebook—uh, and I thought you were on call?"

"False alarm. Get lost, Stiles," the woman sighs, and Stiles slinks out of the room. He looks back to see her turn to the computer, hopefully just to shut it down, and cringes. That didn't go as well as he'd hoped, but…

He pulls out his phone. There's a message from Peter.

Peter:  
Some people don't understand my charm, I'm sure.

Stiles ignores this to type out his response:

Stiles:  
i'm coming over now

A few moments pass as Stiles shoulders his backpack and heads outside. The door to his dad's office is wide open, the room dark.

Peter:  
You found something.

Stiles:  
don't sound so surprised

.

"It might actually be nothing," Stiles says as soon as he walks through the door. Peter, unfazed, steps back to let him inside the house. "I was kinda freaking out at the time 'cause one of the deputies caught me at the computer, and taking the whole ride over here to think it over made me realize it might just be me jumping to conclusions with what I saw, but I don't think so. Or I guess that's why I want to talk to you about it…"

"What is it, Stiles?" Peter interrupts, amused.

Stiles looks around. "Uhh, you don't want to do the whole soundproofed room thing? Where is everyone?"

"Training. _What is it_ , Stiles?"

"Okay." Stiles pulls his backpack over his shoulder, dumping it on the coffee table to grab the files he carries around pretty much all the time now. "I wish I'd had a chance to print that guy's background check, but you're just gonna have to hear me out…" He takes a deep breath, then describes all he'd read, about Myers' record and employment.

Peter nods tolerantly. "As suspected."

"Right, I know. Except at the end. Where it mentioned his associates in his little house fire fraud ring." He sets a stack of papers in front of Peter. "Two guys, Reddick and Unger. They're small-time criminals, but they have pretty long rap sheets and a bunch of experience with arson. Relatively small-time stuff, always abandoned places or buildings that were empty at the time. Seems like they did it for fun, and I guess with Myers they just happened to graduate to getting paid for having fun. They're actually behind bars at the moment, for a probably unrelated arson they did a few months ago."

It takes Stiles a moment to realize he probably shouldn't be referring to arson as having fun in front of someone whose family died in a fire, but Peter seems not to have noticed. He flips through the files, his interest level climbing in a way that's almost palpable. His expression grows suddenly intent, more primal, as if he's moving along the spectrum between man and wolf before Stiles's eyes. At last, he looks up, features morphing back into something a little less threatening. "I thought you hadn't had time to print."

"That's the thing. I didn't print these. They're some of the files that were on Mom's desk when she died." He sees Peter digest this information, peering back down at the mugshots of the two men. "I could never figure out how those documents matched up with anything else, just these random criminal background checks, which by the way she definitely had Dad pull for her or something, so really I shouldn't be getting any shit from him for this, but…" he coughs. "Anyway. I think...this is it. This is how they fit, maybe: Mom's investigating these fires, putting together reports of all the types of fires in the county over the past few years, she realizes something's going on, that some of these fires are arson being covered up. She's got insurance reports pulled up too—I mean there's no reference to Myers specifically, but she had stuff about the company he was working for, so maybe it was just a matter of time before she _did_ figure that out, and if someone realized she was getting close then this could be why she died." Stiles swallows, realizes he's babbling, half-crazed. His hands are shaking, so he clasps his knees. "This could be why she died," he says again.

"Because she connected these men…" Peter flips through the rap sheets, eyes darting from page to page. "These men, who were committing arson right around the time of the fire here...to my family's murder."

The house is very quiet. Stiles wonders if it's that weird soundproofing that makes the words seem to float in the air between them, preserved by the dark living room walls.

"I think I need to tell my dad," Stiles says quietly. "This was all fine when I didn't have anything to go on, but now...this is maybe serious. It's more real."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Peter replies, and Stiles tilts his head. "This might be above your father's paygrade. It might not be safe for him."

"He's the sheriff of Beacon Hills," Stiles retorts indignantly.

Peter rolls his eyes. "I know who he is. But think, Stiles: what reason would these men, suspected of insurance fraud via acts of arson in empty houses, have to murder an entire family in a single night? And to murder a family with no agreement to pay them in return for an insurance payout? Think about who has the most to gain, Stiles, if an entire family of werewolves dies in a house fire."

Stiles blinks, realization creeping over him slowly. "You think...you think whoever did this _knew_ you were werewolves. You think it was hunters?" Stiles stares. "Who, the Argents? Allison's people?"

"I've told Scott to stay away from that girl," Peter growls.

"Allison's got nothing to do with it," Stiles says firmly. "And I say this as someone with every reason to hate her, because she's totally eating away at my time with my best friend. You can't hate Allison Argent. It's impossible, I've tried. She's too full of rainbows. If her family's anything like her, it wasn't them, either."

Peter gives him a loaded look.

"Don't do that," Stiles scowls.

"What?"

"You're writing me off, just now. Like, he doesn't get it, or you're remembering, oh, he's just a kid. I promise you that the Argents—okay, well, I don't know any of them but Allison, but she isn't in on it, at least."

"Fine," Peter sighs irritably. "Maybe the baby didn't help. And I've run into her father, Chris, often enough to think he might actually be a decent human being under all that grimacing. The rest of them are absolutely suspect, and I can say so with the same vehemence you have about your friend Allison."

Stiles nods slowly. "So, what do we do?"

" _We_ are going to do nothing," Peter replies. "With the way things have turned out...perhaps it's best if you lay low for a while. If, in fact, someone murdered your mother for making the same connection you just did, it's better that you don't make it obvious that you know anything."

Stiles looks at Peter suspiciously. "Okay. Then what are _you_ gonna do? You can't kill them or something, dude."

"I never promised I wouldn't," Peter replies, his face like ice.

"I never said never. I'm saying not now. You're right, there's something more going on, and those guys didn't just magically decide to change their M.O. one night. But until we know what happened for sure, we can't tip anyone off. After we have the whole story, you can do whatever you want."

The werewolf looks at Stiles appraisingly. "I thought you'd want them in jail. Being the Sheriff's son, after all."

"I'd want them in jail if I thought they'd actually make it into jail. But if they've come this far and gotten away with it...they're really good. And they're willing to do a lot to not get caught. Better off dead," Stiles says coolly. "Better to be sure."

Peter nods, still studying Stiles. After a few seconds, he suddenly tilts his head as though listening to something. He gives Stiles a smile that should probably be creepy. "You really ought to stay here in the house for a while," he says. "Just to be safe. Humans can be exceedingly fragile."

"No, thanks," Stiles replies instantly. "This isn't really my place."

Peter hums. "It could be."

The front door creaks open. Laura and Derek step into the house, panting. Stiles can hear the other betas squabbling outside on the porch. "Uncle Peter," Laura says, sweeping sweaty hair from her face, "why are you inviting Stiles to stay with us?"

"Just looking out for one of our newest pack members," Peter replies smoothly. Stiles raises his eyebrows, mouthing the words _Pack member?_

"Everything okay?" Derek asks. His eyes slide from Peter to Stiles, expression dubious.

"Fine," Stiles retorts, pulling the rap sheets from Peter and slipping them into his bag. "Just talking. Anyway, I gotta go...I dunno. Do something else far away from this place."

He swings his backpack over his shoulder, stepping past them and out of the door. On the porch, the betas call out greetings as he heads down the grassy stretch to his Jeep.

"Stiles." He turns to find Laura standing at the edge of the porch, one hand gripping the banister. She still seems a little breathless, probably from whatever training they'd done, and maybe...a little guilty too? "You know if you...if something's wrong and you _did_ need somewhere to stay, the door's open."

He's so surprised that his gaping expression lasts long enough to be rude. Laura's face closes up again.

"Yeah, yeah, that's—uh, that's good to know," he says.

She nods and retreats back into the house. Stiles turns, walks across the grass and gets into his Jeep, wondering what hellish realm he'd just temporarily crossed into.

.

If Stiles were to rank the most unlikely things to be happening when he got home, his father calmly eating a salad at the kitchen table would probably be number one. As in, even above Stiles checking the mail to find his long-lost Hogwarts letter had finally arrived.

Stiles had noticed the police cruiser in the driveway, of course, but he'd assumed his dad was locked in his office as usual, or on his way out for the night shift.

"You gonna shut the door?" his dad asks calmly, ignoring Stiles's raised eyebrows as he spears a tomato with his fork.

"Uh, yeah. Right." Stiles locks it behind him and steps awkwardly into the kitchen. "You're...home for dinner?"

"Something like that," his dad replies amiably, like this is normal. Like they're the kind of family that eats dinner at the table instead of hunched over a desk while multitasking. He takes a long sip from his bottle of beer. "Even though this is the lunch salad you brought earlier. Today, I learned salads get even more sad after a couple hours."

Stiles snorts. "Maybe if you remembered to eat on a real schedule like other human beings, you wouldn't have this problem. Why don't you just eat one of those fit meal TV dinner things?"

"We're out of them, actually."

"Ah, my bad," Stiles says guiltily. "Meant to go to the grocery today, just got kinda...distracted."

"No," the Sheriff replies, shifting in his seat. "It's my fault, Stiles. You shouldn't be taking care of everything all the time, I'm just…"

"You're busy, though. I get it."

His dad rubs at his jaw. "Deputy Vargas caught me as I was heading out today," he adds, apropos of nothing. "She told me you were hanging around the filing room. On Facebook."

"Oh my god. That was—I can't believe she basically tattled—"

"You know that room is off limits."

"I know, Dad, it's just that—"

"And I know you hate Facebook."

Stiles pauses. "I do hate Facebook," he admits. "It's trying to know everything about me. I don't even want to know everything about me."

"What were you really doing, then?"

At this, Stiles hesitates, looking at his father doubtfully.

His father nods slowly, looking pained. He sets his fork down and leans back in his chair. "This isn't working, is it?" For a weird second, Stiles thinks he's talking about the salad. "Pretending. Like this."

"What are you talking about?"

His dad scrubs his jaw "I'm pretending I need to be working as much as I do. When I'm really just...making myself busy. Throwing myself into all these cases."

"Dad." Stiles says, and then he closes his mouth.

"It's been a year." His father's eyes don't quite meet his. "It's been hard, but I've been pretending it hasn't been hard on both of us, and I...I'm pretending that you're fine, because if you're fine, then I don't have to think about it either. And that's not working, is it?"

"No," Stiles replies finally, swallowing. "It's not working."

"And you're pretending...well, I guess that part I'm not sure of. Because I can't remember the last time we talked."

Stiles's throat is tight. "Um. This is really, like...sudden."

His dad pushes away the limp salad and kicks out a chair for Stiles to sit down at the table. After a moment, Stiles obediently sinks into it. "What are you up to, Stiles?" he asks gently. "Tell me what's going on with you."

It's such a loaded topic that Stiles's mind momentarily blanks, not sure which direction to run in. "Uhhh…Am I in trouble?"

His dad snorts. "Depends, but...probably not." Which Stiles interprets as I feel guilty enough that you might get a pass for now. "You can start with today, with Vargas. What really happened?"

Stiles gives his dad a long look. "Okay. Don't freak out." He studies his dad, just to be sure he's obeying the instruction, and then adds quickly, "I've been looking into what happened with mom."

The sheriff sighs, but then he nods. "I thought that might be it."

Stiles waits for him to start chewing him out, but nothing comes. "What...that's it?"

His dad looks amused. "It's been a while. I figured you must have made copies of her things when you stopped sneaking into her office. I thought...there was no harm in it, and you weren't doing anything to hurt yourself. Other than the occasional snooping around the station."

Stiles winces, realizing he hasn't been as sneaky as he thought. "It just seemed like there was more to the story than all the official stuff. That guy dying in his cell like that, and it was so random...do you really believe that's how things happened?"

"With police work, a lot of the time the most obvious answer is what happened, Stiles," his dad says slowly, frowning. "With...with your mom's case, I never knew if there was anything unusual, or if I just wanted it to seem that way." He swallows. "Did you...find anything?"

Stiles remembers Peter's warning: it might not be safe for him. But if they're being honest—and it looks like, suddenly, they are—this isn't something Stiles can keep from his dad. And he's not sure he wants to. "Until recently, nothing but dead ends. Until today. 'Cause yeah. I think I found something."

He explains the new link between Myers and the rap sheets on his mother's desk, the conspiracy to commit fraud maybe growing into something more.

His dad looks worn by the end of it. "So you're thinking that it's somehow connected to the Hale house fire?" he confirms. Stiles nods. "Vargas mentioned you were spending time up there. Is that because...are you working with them?"

Stiles squashes another flare of irritation at Vargas, but he nods again. "I am now. I think it makes sense."

"Not sure they're the best influence, Stiles. Peter Hale's slipped two breaking and entering charges in the last three months." He gives Stiles a piercing look. "And you don't need any encouragement there, breaking into office computers..."

"That's—not fair," Stiles splutters angrily. "I mean—"

"You're just a kid, Stiles."

"Someone has to do something," Stiles growls, surprising himself with his own vehemence. "Or the truth never comes out. People just never know what happened, or who knows something, or what they know. Someone has to do something."

"And that has to be you?" his dad asks. Stiles realizes, a beat before he continues, that this isn't just about the police reports anymore. "Do you...feel like you're the one who has to get answers? For your mom, for...for other people?" He pauses. "How far are you going for this, Stiles?"

Stiles deflates, feeling the warmth of the air around him, the flush of his own face. "I...I'm not…"

But his father is giving him the same stare he probably uses on suspects, not an accusatory glare but a knowing look, like he's already aware of what Stiles has done and is waiting for him to say it aloud. Stiles knows how this works, and why it works, but he can feel it working on him all the same.

"I've been...sometimes, yeah. A little."

"Ellery?" his father says. "Fosters?"

Stiles nods, biting his lip. "And Rousseau. Palanen. Tanner."

His dad takes another long swig of beer. When he sets it down, Stiles pulls it away from him. His father doesn't protest. "Shit. I knew it." And then: "Stiles, Palanen stabbed her own husband and children. And you just went up to her on the street?"

"I'm _careful_ , Dad. I always do it so they don't see me coming, and when I start asking questions, when I turn up the heat, they can't really do anything to me, or anything at all. They answer my questions, and I let them go. And then they're fine, they...well, Ellery went over to the station right after, so he was still, you know, having the whole heat stroke thing. But the others recovered first or whatever. And I've never let it go all the way—I let them go, and that's all."

"I've never seen it," his dad says slowly. "Your mom never used her powers in the traditional way, as far as I know. She could play with temperature, and with her job she learned to work with fire—got the sense that isn't normal for poludnica, actually—but as strong as she was, she never used her powers on people at all, I don't think. Not ever."

Stiles squirms in his seat a little, looking away. His dad puts a hand on his arm. "Not what I mean, Stiles. I mean she could have used them in the traditional way if she'd wanted. If she'd needed. And I guess I always felt better knowing that she had the power to defend herself if she ever had to. I like knowing that about you, too."

"Oh," Stiles says quietly. After a moment, he adds, "Are you going to tell me to stop?"

The sheriff sighs. "Would you?"

"I don't know," Stiles says honestly. "I don't know if I can. I never used to...like, need it this much. But I think that now, without knowing what happened to mom, it helps to do this. Whenever I _can_ get answers from someone else, someone who's done something and is getting away with it...I just need to know the truth, sometimes. I need them to...to get what they deserve. Not all the time, but like—I mean, everyone knew about Ellery, but he was just...untouchable. For cops, I mean. In the normal way."

His father nods. "Yeah. That was a hard one on us, too, knowing without being able to pin anything on him. And obviously, I haven't exactly been _upset_ to have the guys who slip through the cracks magically decide to come in and confess their crimes," he adds, smiling wryly for a beat before sobering. "But Stiles...you have to promise me you'll never do this alone again. I don't have to be there in the room with you—probably better if I'm not, considering. But you tell me who you're seeing and where you're going, and I'll hang around nearby. I don't want you running into anything you can't handle."

"That's...actually, that's fair," Stiles says, surprised but not displeased. "I bring the heat, you bring the getaway car." He pauses. "So. This is police-sanctioned vigilantism, now?"

"Let's not put labels on anything," his dad says, but he grins a little, and Stiles grins back. Then, his dad glances at the bottle, heaves a long breath, and looks back at Stiles. "So. Garrick and Unger are still doing time for a separate arson," he says, and at Stiles's surprised look, he adds, "I've been through your mom's papers, too. That leaves Garrick Myers guy. If you're thinking of…"

Stiles tilts his head. "I am," he confirms. "I mean, Peter's looking into it, or at least he's looking into...ugh, that's another thing we should talk about later. But yeah, now that there's this new, actual lead, I'm definitely questioning Myers."

"Alright. Not without me, you aren't. Let's figure out where and when." It's been a while since Stiles has seen his dad like this, his head pulled up high, expression brimming with determination. It makes Stiles think of all the hero-worshipping he used to do as a kid, wanting to be a cop like his dad, wanting to be his dad. "I'd rather you weren't involved," the sheriff confesses honestly, "but...you're probably the best chance we've got at finding answers without throwing up red flags. If anyone's still watching, still trying to cover something up. I can't start asking questions at work. But you can ask questions behind closed doors." The sheriff pauses. "And what about Peter Hale?"

Stiles shifts guiltily. "I mean, technically, that part's not my secret to tell." For about five seconds, he considers this, thinks about his dad's existing knowledge of the supernatural, and then adds: "But...fuck it. Okay. The Hales are totally werewolves. Yeah, don't look at me like that; that's apparently a thing, too, because why not. They don't know about me, it's just a totally unrelated thing, and I only found out about them because Scott got bit and now he's one, too. That's why we're up there all the time, because Scott needed a pack, and they're helping him learn to control his instincts. And so Peter's thinking it's linked to the supernatural world, or specifically with these werewolf hunters who are in town, so he's going to do some digging, which is better for us because werewolves can actually survive a bullet if anyone goes after him like they did mom. Or certain kinds, anyway, so here's hoping no one's shooting the wolfsbane stuff that can kill him."

The sheriff opens his mouth. Closes it. Leans across the table to reach for the beer, which Stiles pulls away from him. "Okay," his father sighs, folding his arms. "Looks like we have more talking to do."

.

.

.

wow hey i just remembered, i know nothing about insurance, arson, or the law so i'm not sure why i'm here

also if there's a plot hole with any of that stuff i love you very much but i please be gentle when telling me, thanks


	4. Burning Questions

.

 **Four – Burning Questions**

.

For the second time that summer, Stiles finds himself trying to believe he's less creepy than he feels.

He slips out of the police cruiser, shrugging awkwardly at his dad. "I'll be fine," he says.

"I'll be here," his father replies, though from the anxious look on his face, Stiles thinks he probably wants to say something else. Stiles nods and shuts the door.

It's really weird, Stiles thinks, having his dad come with him like this. He'd never imagined that his father might not only agree with Stiles's extracurricular activities, but also _support_ them...sort of. There had been something a little like regret on his father's face, though, or maybe reluctance. From the overbearing coaching he gave Stiles on what to ask and how to ask it, Stiles thinks his dad's first choice is probably _not_ to let him walk up to Myers alone.

It doesn't matter, though. Stiles is good with questions. And he has his trusty bat to back him up, which probably makes his dad feel better, anyway.

He rounds the corner, walks half a block, and strides up to Garrison Myers' house. As he takes the steps up to the porch, he focuses his thoughts intently, peering at the dry cracks and chipped blue paint, about in the place where Myers's face will appear in a second. He rings the doorbell, hoping the general noonday glow will make his own shimmer less conspicuous.

The door swings open. Myers looks just like his picture in the database: lightly greying hair, a small mouth, bushy eyebrows. Stiles feels his powers take hold in the way Myers gapes and won't look away.

"Hello," he says pleasantly. "Can I come in?"

.

"I don't know. I don't know why," Myers pleads again. "I'm so sorry." He stands in the middle of the squalid floor, dazed from the heat and a little glassy-eyed.

In the additional research Stiles has done since checking Myers out in the police database, he found that Myers' wife left him some time ago, as Peter had suggested. Probably around the time all that fraud stuff had come out. She'd taken their kids with her.

Stiles wonders if that was before or after Myers let the house go to shit. He feels like he's swimming in filth. Beer cans litter the kitchen floor, and the countertops are piled with plastic bags, takeout containers, and dirty dishes. There are empty cigarette cartons piled on the coffee table, and the smell of something dead or rotting makes Stiles's eyes water. The heat isn't really helping, either, just fermenting the toxic odor.

It's almost enough to make Stiles feel sorry for him. Except that Myers is almost definitely implicated in his mother's death.

Instead, Stiles is burning all over, almost consumed by frustration. "You have to know _something_. People don't just get phone calls in the middle of the night asking for you to set up something like that."

" _I_ did," the man insisted. "I got them all the time—the three of us were working together, we made a name for ourselves all over the state if you knew where to look. Still get calls sometimes." Stiles's fury rises, and Myers adds timidly, "I haven't taken any. Reddick and Unger, maybe, but I haven't since that night." And again, expression oddly pleading for someone so far under: "I'm so sorry."

"Stop apologizing. Fuck." Stiles groans. The man is sweating, even swaying a little. Stiles rests the bat against the wall, and then he carefully picks his way across the disgusting floor to grab a glass from an open cabinet. He fills it with tap water and hands it to the man. "Sit down. Jesus."

"It was a woman's voice," Myers adds slowly, unsolicited, after he's taken a long drink. "I never met her or got a name, it was all under the table. But she paid us a crazy amount of money, more than we got for the usual...stuff. And half up front. For us, it was too good to pass up."

Stiles waits a beat for him to say more, but it seems like that's all there is.

"I'm so sorry," the man says stupidly. His eyes aren't glassy, Stiles realizes. He's about to start crying. "I'm so sorry."

"Ok. Yeah. Look, anything about the voice? Young, old, background noises?"

"I don't know—not elderly or anything, and not a kid or teenager. Just a woman. I don't remember hearing anything in the background. And she was all business, no side discussion."

Stiles runs a hand through his hair and tries to tone down the heat. "You get this call. Unger and Reddick do the deed, you cover it up. Did you know? That it was...that there were _people_ in the house?"

"That part wasn't on me, I swear. She set it up with them, she told them where and when," the man says desperately.

Stiles weighs this carefully. "Okay. And after that, you mark it down as an accident, she pays the other half. And then what?"

"That's it. That's the end, all I know."

Stiles nods. "Does the name Claudia Stilinski mean anything to you?"

Through his stupor, the man blinks slowly. "Stilinski...like the Sheriff? No. Is she the one who called?"

It's not feigned, Stiles can tell. He isn't sure whether he's disappointed or not, finding that this man has no idea who his mother was. The connection between her and the Hale house fire is still tenuous, then, without anything to really link them.

"You're sure you never had any further contact?" he asks, frustrated. "You don't know _anything_ else?"

"No," Myers says quietly. "Are you going to kill me?"

A part of Stiles wishes he was. "No. As long as you keep this to yourself—I'll know about it if you don't." The man's focus is solemn, studious. His eyes are very, very blue. "And if you _ever_ do anything like this again, I'll make you wish you were dead."

Myers sits back a little in his seat. "Don't worry," he says miserably. "I already do."

.

"Dead end," Stiles announces wearily the instant he clambers back into the car. He shoves his bat between the seat and the console, mostly to make himself busy: he almost can't take the concern in his dad's face. "Dude, I'm fine, everything's fine. I'm bitter, not injured."

"Don't call me 'dude.' And don't give me that. It takes something out of you, doesn't it?"

"No more than lacrosse practice," Stiles protests. Truth is, he was too distracted to feel the fatigue, but now it washes over him all at once, along with a cold chill. He shivers as he buckles his seat belt, and his dad glances around nonchalantly before pulling out into the street. No one's looking, though. No one's suspicious, not in broad daylight, and not in a middle-class neighborhood in boring Beacon Hills.

Stiles recounts his conversation with Myers, the man's lifeless expression, the obvious fact that he has no idea who Claudia Stilinski was.

His dad doesn't say something right away, probably just as disappointed as Stiles is. When he finally speaks, Stiles isn't surprised to find him trying for the optimistic route, probably to make them both feel better. "It's not nothing," he says at last, taking them out onto the main road toward the center of the city. "The person who set this up was a woman. She gave more information to Unger and Reddick. It's a start, Stiles."

"Yeah, I know. It's just…"

"We were hoping for more."

"I was hoping it would bust this case wide open," Stiles exclaims, flailing his arms in a way guaranteed to make his dad crack a smile.

"Welcome to police work," his dad chuckles. "Slow, steady, and sometimes painful."

"Peter needs to know. About the woman calling, I mean."

His dad doesn't say anything for a while, and when Stiles glances at him, he's making the face he sometimes makes when he's going to say something Stiles won't like and doesn't know how to word it. "I don't know if I like you sharing information like this with someone like Peter Hale."

" _I_ don't know if I like me sharing it with someone like Peter Hale," Stiles admits. "But if we're going off the deep end, we might as well go all the way. Peter's got...whatever supernatural connections he's got. And we might need them, Dad. If it's something beyond like, werewolves and _me_ that did this to her, we have absolutely zero knowledge on how to deal. And besides, information goes both ways: if he finds out something, we want him to tell us."

His dad sighs. "I thought you said you can't lie to a werewolf, anyway," he says. "I thought they were like _you_."

Stiles hums. "Yeah, kinda. Tell me I'm not allowed to tell him anything except the stuff about the woman on the phone. Then I'll tell him that's what you told me."

His dad tilts his head, trying to figure out Stiles's game. He dutifully repeats the phrase. "Their, uh, lie detectors are that basic?"

"Pretty sure, yeah."

"Hmm. Hey, Stiles? Don't...don't tell them what you are. It just sounds like you're starting to trust them. And you're not wrong, if there's more supernatural stuff out there we need to deal with, it'll help to have them to back you up. But I want you to stay safe. And give it time. I want you to be sure."

"I don't—trust them," Stiles protests, but he realizes as he's saying it that it's not the whole answer. His dad glances at him knowingly. "Okay, I don't know. But I definitely wasn't gonna tell them anything. I haven't even told _Scott,_ no way am I telling the Hales."

"Scott doesn't know yet?" the sheriff asks, surprised. Then he backtracks, seeing the guilt that's probably plastered all over Stiles's face. "I just figured, now that he's a werewolf and all, you probably told him."

"Well...no. I mean, he was going through a lot, and my powers, uh...I don't know. I didn't want to drag him into this."

His dad opens his mouth to talk, but his cell phone buzzes. At the next red light, he glances at the message.

"This has been fun family bonding time," Stiles remarks, glancing at his own phone to shoot off a text. His dad sighs. "Scott's at the Hales' place. Drop me off?"

.

Stiles gets weird looks when he shows up at the Hale house, his unsmiling father in the driver's seat of the cruiser. It's fortunate that Laura has a hard rule against wolfing out anywhere in sight of the dirt road and driveway, although no one knows they don't need to bother with that for his dad's sake at this point.

"Stilinski, you can't just bring random humans here," Jackson protests. As if he wasn't human himself once. Training is winding down, and he and Derek are watching Laura shout at the other betas across the field. "It's not exactly the place for them. Jesus."

Stiles catches himself before he says something stupid like _I'm a human,_ and instead throws his arms open. "Can't help what I am, dude," he exclaims.

"I, for one, remember a moment in time when fully a third of the pack was human," Peter says mildly. Stiles hadn't seen him at first: he's under the shaded porch, perched on an aged wicker chair.

Jackson blanches a little at the realization that he'd accidentally insulted the family of a pretty unstable man, and turns back to spectating. Stiles turns as well to wave at Scott, who looks surprisingly stubborn in the face of Laura's criticism. Scott grins and waves back. Laura turns to scowl at the interruption, but Stiles pretends not to see.

"Got a sec?" he asks Peter, muffling a yawn.

"For a valued human pack member, I have more than a sec."

"Laying it on thick," Stiles replies in amusement, glancing back to see that Jackson's ears are still pink.

"I don't appreciate intolerance among the pack," Peter replies easily, leading him inside.

"A surprisingly sunshine and rainbows philosophy," Stiles returns. "Coming from you, anyway. Okay. I told my dad," he adds as soon as the door to Peter's office closes.

"Which I believe is exactly what we agreed we _wouldn't_ do."

"Yeah. But Dad and I can take care of ourselves," he says firmly. "And...he wasn't looking into mom's death so much at first, and I wasn't going to bring it up without any evidence. But now that there's a lead, I had to say _something_. Wouldn't you want to know, if it was you? Even if it might get you hurt?"

Peter doesn't answer this, but he sighs. "Your decision," he says at last. "Well. What's the update, then?"

"He said I'm not allowed to tell you much. Couple things: he ran checks on the Argents, like, _all_ of them, but they're squeaky clean. Which you probably expected. The other thing is that Myers got a call from a woman to set the whole thing up. She was all business, and he doesn't know much because he was only in on the payout and insurance deal, but she definitely also called Unger and Reddick with more information. That's all I've got."

Peter is completely still. His eyes are oddly wide, like a cat watching an insect on the windowsill. "And how did you find this information?" he asks.

"That's all I've got," Stiles repeats. "Dad says that's all I'm allowed to dish out."

"Hm," Peter considers. "Is Myers under arrest?"

Stiles shifts uncomfortably. "Not exactly."

"Interesting. So this wasn't official business, then. Obviously the smartest thing to do at this point is to keep things quiet, so we can flush out the brains behind all of this, but still...interesting that the Sheriff would go down avenues that are less _public_."

"It's not just anyone who died, for us. Don't pretend you wouldn't do the same."

Peter holds his hands up, smirking. "I'm also not the sheriff. Just trying to figure the two of you out, Stiles. A mystery in and of itself. At any rate," he adds, "a woman's voice. I wonder...if I were to provide a voice recording, do you think your father could have Myers listen to see if he could positively identify it?"

Stiles shrugs. "Can't see why not. It's been years, but I guess he could at least tell us if he thinks there's even a chance it's the same voice. But...whose voice recording? Do you know something?"

"I know nothing. But I have many theories." Peter climbs to his feet and opens the office door. Bewildered, Stiles follows him back downstairs to the living room. Not all of the pack is gathered just yet, but Erica and Lydia are chatting in the doorway, with Scott and Isaac fighting over the remote on the sofa.

"Scott," Peter says pleasantly. Scott, surprised by his sudden arrival, promptly loses the battle. Isaac changes the channel. "How is your girlfriend these days?"

Lydia and Erica grow quiet upon observing this, exchanging looks almost as baffled as Scott's. It doesn't really help that Peter's grin shows too many teeth.

"She—uh, fine?"

"Healthy and happy? Any news?"

Scott glances between Peter and Stiles, who takes pity on his friend. "If I can interpret for a sec," he begins. "Peter is really wondering a more specific question I'm sure he's going to ask you now instead of continuing to act creepy and borderline threatening."

"Not quite as fun, Stiles, but thank you," Peter sighs. "Specifically, if you know the next time her aunt will be visiting?"

"Um, I think so? Yeah. Either she is or she's supposed to be here soon. Allison said her parents are being real weird about it."

"Hm," Peter murmurs. He shoots an intense look at Stiles, sighing upon realizing Stiles is struggling to interpret it. "Possibly she'll be doing damage control. Which means she's heard something. Which means we'll need to be more careful. Wonderful."

"Wonderful?" Scott says suspiciously. "Aren't these the people you guys have been on my back about since day one?"

"And fortunately your reckless stubbornness might pay off for the entire pack. So I'll need you to do me a favor."

Scott looks at Stiles, who shrugs helplessly. It seems to be enough for Scott, though.

"Okay," Scott says finally. "Tell me what you need."

.

"Heading out already?" Derek asks, and Stiles jumps a foot in the air. The room is dark enough that he'd thought Derek was sleeping like the others: Isaac and Boyd are splayed across the carpet in front of the TV, Erica having claimed the sofa as her own. They'd been binging episodes of _The Walking Dead_ —which is what had originally pulled Stiles in to sit and watch—but he must have fallen asleep around when Shane died the second time.

"You guys definitely do that on purpose," Stiles hisses, trying to get his thumping heart to chill. He can't really see Derek's face, and he doesn't have those werewolf-y senses or whatever, but he can definitely make out some lingering amusement.

"If you didn't spaz so hard, we wouldn't." He sits in the armchair by the window, but he definitely hadn't been there a while ago when Stiles fell asleep.

"Anyway," Stiles mutters mulishly, hooking his thumbs into his pockets, "I wouldn't say 'already,' it's like one in the morning."

"For pack, it's 'already.' You know you could stay here, right? You're always talking about how empty your house is. Laura doesn't care."

There are so many things going on in that sentence that Stiles doesn't know where to start, but mostly it makes him wonder if he's complaining about his dad more than he realizes. And it's true that it's been...a weirdly nice night. Surprisingly so, considering that Stiles normally would have left ages ago with Scott, who, again, is basically Stiles's only reason for sticking it out in this place. Scott had left to meet with Allison for their date, still dubious about Peter's instructions to subtly record her aunt's voice with his phone at the first opportunity.

Erica, who reveals herself to be more and more cool every time she opens her mouth, proposed a series binge, and Stiles had basically forgotten to head out. It had been nice, actually, watching other peoples' lives go to shit for a change, debating Erica on apocalyptic strategies and topics that have zero bearing on anything in his life.

"I don't know," he says at last, a little uncertain. "I should really get home."

Derek grunts, shifting out of the chair. "Come on," he says, walking toward the door.

"What?"

"I'll drive you. Your Jeep's at your house. Your dad brought you here, remember?"

"Oh—shit. Right. Uh, you don't have to—"

" _Come on,_ Stiles."

The inside of the Camaro turns out to be just what you'd expect from the outside: smooth and sleek, with barely a hint that a human has ever touched it. After a few minutes, Stiles breaks the silence. "Tell me the truth, you got this car because it looks like a leather jacket feels, didn't you?"

Derek doesn't dignify this with a response.

"You didn't have to drive me. I guess it would've been easier if I'd stayed."

"You don't want to."

"No, I don't." Stiles wonders what Derek hears when he says this, whether his heartbeat ticks up just a little. He isn't sure himself, these days.

"Why not?"

"I don't know."

Derek rolls his eyes. After a few more minutes, he breaks the silence again. "Laura and I went a long time without rebuilding the house," he says at last. "Peter was...like, in and out, never really around for long, and we didn't really know what we were doing. We have the money, but we just thought maybe it didn't make sense, rebuilding. It felt like we were changing something that...I don't know." He pauses. "But eventually, we realized we were always at the house, in the woods, never at the apartment we were renting while we figured our shit out."

This time, Derek's quiet for a long time. Stiles eventually wonders if that's all there is to it. "So you rebuilt," he prompts.

"Sometimes, it felt better," Derek says at last. "Being in the place where our old pack was, even if it wasn't there anymore. Took me a while figuring that out. Like, before we could figure out our shit, we had to just…"

"Stay where your family was," Stiles finishes, realizing what Derek's trying to say. "Yeah, I guess I'm...it doesn't make sense, but I…"

"It makes sense. It's where your mom was. No one can change that, but...if you ever need to get out of your own head, that's what the pack's here for."

"Is that why Laura bit them?" Stiles counters. "To—" he realizes he's about to insinuate that Laura made new betas to replace her pack, which isn't what he thinks. Not anymore, at least. He backtracks. "To help you guys against the Argents, or anyone else?"

"Is that really what you think?" Derek asks coolly.

"I don't know! I don't know what to think. I've never asked because until recently I thought you guys were a necessary evil we needed so Scott wouldn't go feral, and I'm pretty sure you guys either hated me, in Laura's case, or just tolerated me as Scott's tag-along friend. I'm still on the fence about that one."

Derek sighs. "It's not like that. We didn't know you guys. Laura didn't pick either of you, so it was all unexpected. No one hates you...and yeah, it seems weird if you don't know pack dynamics, but packs are usually big, like seven to fifteen on average. Laura and I decided to offer the bite to people we thought needed it, and who'd fit in with us. And also Jackson," he adds.

Stiles pauses. "Was that a joke?"

"Technically he asked for the bite, so Laura didn't offer it first," Derek says, probably knowing he's dodging the question if his grin's anything to go by. "You and Peter found something."

Stiles tilts his head at the sudden topic shift. "Yeah. Or not exactly, but...maybe a lead? I don't know." He sighs. "It doesn't feel like much, but Peter thinks we can maybe connect Kate Argent, Allison's aunt, to someone who's admitted involvement in the arson."

Derek swears quietly under his breath. "I was hoping it wasn't the Argents," he admits. "I've never met them in person, but I remember my mom telling us to stay away from them—they're real pieces of work."

"That's what Peter says, too."

At this, Derek looks at Stiles, just for a second or two, and then back at the road. "Hey Stiles?" he says, "Look out for Peter. Look out for yourself, too, but…" he sighs. "I don't know what I'm asking, but he really needs this. And he talks to you more than anyone, which is good. He's been hanging on his own for a while."

Stiles absorbs this information as they pull into his subdivision, the streetlights bathing the street in gold. It's just before two, and Stiles can feel sleep tugging at him the closer he gets to his own bed.

"So am I really pack?" Stiles blurts suddenly, surprising even himself. "I mean, I'm not a werewolf. And Laura's always kind of insinuated...but then, you and Peter seem to act like I am. I don't know."

"Both. Neither." Derek says slowly, just as they pull in front of Stiles's house. "It depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On whether you want to be."

There's nothing Stiles can say to that, because he doesn't know the answer. Instead, he slides out of the car and toward his home.

.

Stiles hates answering the door at the best of times, but a knock at the door at three in the morning is even worse. Nothing good can possibly come at this hour.

He'd been nursing a quickly cooling cup of tea after Derek dropped him off, somehow wide awake and anxious. But now, he stands and creeps to the door.

He recognizes the dark-haired woman from the police office; her cruiser sits in the street behind her. Stiles opens the door, his heart thudding in his chest. "Deputy Vargas," he says quickly. "Is everything ok? Is my dad…?"

The woman swallows, and the look she gives him is reluctant, pitying. "He's still alive," she says quickly, wringing her hands. "But there's been an incident, and...maybe it's better if I come in."

They sit together in the living room, Stiles's tea abandoned on the coffee table. He distantly thinks that probably he's supposed to offer her something to drink, but his mind is in a haze. "What happened to him?"

"Actually, this isn't about him," Vargas says. "This is about you." Before he can work out what she means by this, she slowly slips her Glock from its holster, clicking off the safety and pulling back the slide to chamber a round. She rests the gun sideways on her knee, still pointing it in his direction. With great effort, he pulls his eyes from the gun barrel to her face.

"What the actual fuck."

"You visited Myers."

"Is that illegal? Also, what the fuck. Also, how could you know that?"

"Camera installed outside his house."

Stiles's eyes bug out. "You're watching him on _camera_?"

"Not until recently. Not until I realized you'd used the office computer to access his file, along with Reddick and Unger."

It's taking his brain too long to catch up with this, like he's wading through tar. He takes a deep breath and holds it, then lets it go. Vargas is still staring at him intently, having dropped the pitying expression as soon as she'd pulled her gun. "My dad isn't hurt."

"No," she says. "Not yet."

"He has _nothing_ to do with this."

Vargas shrugs.

 _No_. _What?_ Stiles has to think. He has to think. He's not a human, though he uses his powers so infrequently that it takes him a moment to remember it. He pulls them out now, a surge of heat. He's not sure he can manage to capture her gaze like he normally does—his thoughts are spilling out so rapidly that he can't force himself into the calm, forceful frame of mind just yet—but he'll try. She hasn't killed him yet, which means she might not know how much he knows. Or...

"You're here because you want to find out if anyone else knows," he guesses. Vargas says nothing, and Stiles shakes his head, realizing he has to get on top of this and _ask her a question._ He steadies himself, trying to calm his nerves—is he on fire? He might be on fire. "Why are you here?"

"I need some answers," she answers, frowning as she wipes sweat from her brow. "What does your father know? And why did you get out of Derek Hale's car earlier?"

"My dad doesn't know anything. Are you watching me?"

She shrugs again. "Camera on your house, too. Can't be too careful." Her gaze is watchful now, curious.

"You can't hurt my dad," he says, voice cracking a little. He shakes his head, the fire in his chest building until he can throw out another question. "Are you going to hurt my dad?"

Vargas pulls at the collar of her white button-up. "I'm not going to, Stiles. I just need you to tell me what you know."

She's lying. He wouldn't need to be a _poludnica_ to know.

This isn't working. He can't focus, can barely funnel his magic the way he needs to. His mind is moving too fast to concentrate. A thought occurs to him. "Myers said a woman called him on the phone, back when the Hale house burned. Was that you?"

Vargas's smile turns into a smirk. "Not me. I wonder if you know who it was yet."

"Was it Kate Argent?"

She blinks in surprise, and that's when Stiles takes his chance. He lunges over and grabs her hand, the one holding the gun, twisting it aside and letting it _sear._ She screams, and the gun gives a loud _crack,_ but the bullet goes just past his leg.

And then they're fighting for control of the gun, all elbows and sharp edges. Stiles is burning, Vargas is shrieking. They spill onto the floor. Not for nothing is Vargas a police officer; he may have a hand on one wrist, but that leaves her a fist and two legs to pummel him hard. Trying to recover from a punch to the face, Stiles burns any inch of skin he can get a hand on, his right hand still forcing the gun away from his core.

"What are you, what _are_ you?" Vargas screams, her face red. At last, he hurts her hand enough that she has to let go of the gun, but in doing so she somehow manages to knock it away from them both, and it skitters across the floor and into the low bookshelf on the far wall.

Stiles finds himself on top of Vargas, whose eyes are watery and filled with fear, and it's enough to make him hesitate. There's no way to quickly bring her under his spell again now that they've broken eye contact, but he needs to subdue her fast.

Something glints in Vargas's hand, and Stiles has only a split second to flinch out of the way of the knife, which catches him in the side. Pain shoots through him. She grabs his hair and rams his head into the coffee table, hard enough that he can _feel_ his thoughts flicker, like a television going black in a moment of interference. He wrenches out of her way, feeling the knife sweep past the air beside his chest, and then he flings up his arm to block another blow.

The blade cuts a gash in his wrist but doesn't catch. His other hand finds its way onto her throat. He's never used his magic like this, never, but he suddenly knows what to do: he's burning white hot, not sure if he imagines the blinding light in the room. He can see nothing for several beats; all he knows is fire and rage and fear.

Vargas is gagging, feeble, the knife forgotten in her hand, but she's somehow shouting his name—but no. It's not her voice.

It's his dad's. " _Stiles!"_ his father shouts. For a second, Stiles can't even remember where he is, not in this blinding white place with his father's worried face before him, a woman writhing on the floor below. A knife glinting, a fire burning. His father has his gun out, aimed at Vargas's head. With his boot, he knocks the forgotten blade out of the way. "Stiles, it's ok. Stop this—you can stop this."

Stiles doesn't come back to himself for several more breaths. The light fades, and it's just Stiles in his own living room, Vargas sobbing in a heap on the floor. Her face is blotchy and red, her eyes swollen, her skin gleaming with sweat. "Dad?" he croaks.

His father takes that as a signal, quickly rolling Vargas over and whipping out his handcuffs to lock her hands behind her back. Then, he holsters his gun and attacks Stiles with a hug that makes him yelp in pain. His dad pulls back instantly. "You're hurt, where did she…?" He traces the line of Stiles's jaw with his thumb, looks at his temple, which must be starting to bruise. He gently pushes Stiles away by the shoulder and swears at the sight of blood on his left side.

"Don't think she got it in me," Stiles slurs as his dad pulls up his shirt. "Just the side of it."

His dad lets out a shaky breath and pushes Stiles to sit down on the coffee table. "If I hadn't finished up early…" He wraps his hand around the back of Stiles' neck, which will have to do in place of a hug. "Why the hell would she be here? Tell me what happened. Jesus, Stiles."

Stiles gives him the story. "She's involved with the Hale stuff, I don't know how," he finishes dully. "What are we going to say? About her…"

They look down at the burned woman, who's now passed out on the rug. The red marks on her neck and arms look strange, spastic, but some of them clearly look like handprints. Her clothes are burned as well, and she's overheated for sure.

"You let me deal with that part," the Sheriff says firmly, his face furious. "I'll bring her in, they'll have to give her medical attention tonight, and in the morning...we'll find out what else she knows. As for you," he adds slowly, turning to Stiles, "I'd feel better if you didn't get medical attention tonight."

Stiles looks at him funny. " _I'd_ feel better if I got medical attention."

"That's not what I mean. I'm...going to call Melissa. I don't know what's going on, Stiles, I don't understand this, but this is going farther than even I thought, and I can't lose you. When I came in and you were…" he pulls Stiles in for another hug, this one much more gentle. "Someone's trying to hurt you, and I can't lose you. If I have to take care of this, I want you to here with Melissa and Scott, or…" he trails off, pulling away.

"Or what?" Stiles asks, not understanding the look on his dad's face.

"I know all the stuff you said about the Hales...but if you can stay with them while I'm processing her arrest, that would make me feel about ten times better."

At this, Stiles can't help but let out a laugh. He's shivering a little.

"Stiles?" his dad asks, concerned.

"I'm ok," he says hollowly, hearing his voice as though a thousand miles away. "Maybe a little in shock, but—yeah. I guess I'm a part of the pack."

.

.

.

 **A/N:** Hopefully that answers some of the questions about the extent of Stiles's powers! He's quite a bit stronger than even he realizes.

Let me know what you thought on the way out!


	5. The Meaning of Pack

**A/N:** So guess who turned up not dead? (hint: it's me!) The long delay was _not_ a part of the original plan, but I'm finally back up and running! Thank you SO much for all the reviews and kind words - I was blindsided by some life drama and haven't had a chance to reply, but I've been reading through them all and I love hearing from you. Plus, they've pretty much lit a fire under me to finally finish this story. The last chapter is being written and will be up very soon, hopefully within the next week or so.

 **Last time, on The Midday Lord:** With his dad shadowing him from afar, Stiles interrogates Garrison Myers but gets very little information...only that the call for the insurance fraud was made by a woman. The Sherriff drives Stiles to the Hale house, where Peter decides to have Scott get a recording of Kate Argent's voice for comparison. When Stiles goes home later that night, he is attacked by Deputy Vargas, who reveals she's been working with Kate. He manages to fight her off by burning her skin but is badly hurt in the process, so his father decides to send him to the Hales for safekeeping.

 **Five – The Meaning of Pack**

.

Stiles slowly floats back to consciousness the following morning, with a gradual awareness that something is off without knowing exactly what. His bed is firmer, the light on his eyelids brighter—he sits up quickly and instantly regrets it when a jolt of pain shoots across his side.

"Careful," Peter says mildly. The werewolf lounges in the fat armchair in the corner, and he only lowers his newspaper a little.

Stiles looks at him stupidly. It's mid-morning, and the harsh summer sun is streaming into the living room of the Hale house. At some point in the night, Stiles was given a pillow and blanket and made to lie down here on the sofa, but he only dimly remembers having come in at all. He has flashes of his dad opening the door for the McCalls, Melissa and Scott being distinctly freaked out. Scott had driven him here to the Hales' place in the early hours of the morning, but Stiles had been so out of it by then that he could barely remember climbing out of the car at all.

Peter watches him put the puzzle pieces together. "Apparently Scott's mother thought if you weren't going to be admitted to a hospital, you should at least sleep it off. Derek and Scott say you were still concussed and pretty much nonverbal. How are you feeling?"

"I...think I'm okay." Stiles frowns at the question, still pressing a hand to his side. "And you, did you—is my dad…?"

"I followed him to the station," Peter replies, giving him a long look. Stiles practically deflates in relief. "He formally processed the arrest, so it's all public at this point. If someone wanted to make sure none of this got out, they'd have had to get rid of him earlier. So either Kate and any other conspirators didn't find out in time, or…" He shrugs.

"Yeah. Although—when I texted, I wasn't sure if you would," Stiles can't help but add slowly. "Go with Dad, I mean. It's um, probably more tempting to stalk Kate right now, in case it is her. Even though she or any other hunters would probably be too smart to get caught in this. And I guess we don't officially know she's in on it, even though Vargas's face was, man, she was definitely surprised when I asked about Kate Argent...shit, I wish I'd've waited for her answer instead of going for the gun, but it seemed like the best chance I had...But anyway, I guess we're waiting on Vargas to talk? Maybe we'll find out how the fuck she's in on this?"

"Funny thing, that," Peter says, tossing the paper onto the sofa. "Sit back down, Stiles," he adds. Stiles blinks, not even realizing he'd gotten to his feet sometime during his rambling. He obeys. "Vargas was found dead in the hospital about two hours ago," the werewolf says slowly.

Stiles's stomach drops. "Because of the burns, because of...?" He manages to filter the gut reaction before he finishes with because of me.

Peter gives him a strange look. "No, Stiles. She was shot twice in the chest."

"She what."

Peter sighs. "Yes. 'Everyone's on high alert, police are asking for any suspects...' The usual. At least we should be happy that this time, they didn't bother to make it look like a suicide. This is...messier. They were caught by surprise, so they're on the defensive. They weren't expecting you to fight."

Stiles frowns, shifting under the weight of Peter's gaze. "And the Argents? Did Scott get Kate's voice, or did you find anything?"

"Nothing," Peter growls bitterly. "Kate Argent's skipped town."

"Skipped town? When?"

"If I had to guess, I'd imagine she did it right after putting two bullets in Vargas's chest."

Stiles swears, low and anxious. "Maybe it's for the best. If she knows we know, or that we probably know...she's gotta get out of here. Especially since she can guess by now my dad at least suspects, and he'll have the other deputies on it too. God. As long as Vargas is the only one on the hunters' side. There's no way of knowing…"

"No, there isn't," Peter confirms gruffly. "But I doubt it's a large conspiracy, if there are in fact more involved than just Kate. The hunter community, like the werewolf community, is relatively small."

"So...with Kate long gone, where do we—"

"Oh, I wouldn't count on that," Peter laughs. There's no humor in it. "I think you're underestimating how much she wants to finish the job she started. Think about it—nothing formal linking her to any of the crimes. Her hands are still legally clean. It's in her best interest, if she's going to finish things off, to do it before we find any evidence linking her to the fire, to your mother. And she knows we're looking."

"If, if," Stiles says quietly.

The lower floor of the Hales' home has high ceilings and airy spaces stretching from the open kitchen and dining area to the cluster of sofas and ottomans that make up the living space. That makes it easy, Stiles imagines, for the pack to feel closer, more at home, even when scattered across the underbelly of the house. But Stiles feels suddenly trapped here, restless even in this wide open room. "I gotta get outside," he says, standing abruptly. He's having a hard time with Peter's curious, intense stare. "I need some air."

He pauses partway to the door, though. "Thanks," he says, turning back to Peter. "For looking after my dad."

Peter quirks his head a little, as if he didn't hear the question, and then he slips off down the hallway.

Outside, Stiles drops into one of the wicker chairs. A few of the betas are sparring off in the distance. It must be Laura's turn to work with them, because she's out there shouting. But it's not just her, Stiles realizes suddenly. It's all of them, and they're not shouting, but cheering. The match is Isaac and Boyd, and though it's hard to make things out from so far away, Isaac looks to be giving as good as he gets.

One of the betas peels away from the pack, jogging toward the house. Scott. Of course.

"You okay?" Scott asks as soon as he's climbed onto the porch.

Blinking, Stiles considers this. "I'm okay."

"Good." Stiles finds himself with an armful of werewolf, but Scott pulls back almost before it fully registers. "You were like, in hardcore shock yesterday. Wouldn't stop shaking. I was really worried." He says it so matter-of-factly, and Stiles feels a rush of affection for his best friend, probably the only person in the world other than his dad who'd ever known him well enough to worry. "You're really okay, dude?" Scott repeats, almost shy.

"I'm okay," Stiles says again.

"Okay. I can't believe that deputy...it's crazy that she came at you like that. How did you get away? Man, I didn't even get the details, you were really out of it..."

"I guess we just ended up fighting for her knife. She got me a couple times, but I managed to keep it away from the vital stuff."

Scott is biting his lip, not looking at Stiles anymore.

"What is it, man?"

Scott frowns. "What aren't you telling me?"

"What do you mean?"

"I saw that woman before your dad got her into his car, Stiles—mom and I were at your house. She had, like, burn marks all over her. It was...weird. And, look, I don't know much," he rushes to add before Stiles can even work out a response. "But you're just kinda...distant lately. I thought it was just because of the whole werewolf thing, and having to be here, but now I'm not so sure. And...well, you're the one who helped me with the whole werewolf thing, remember? So if something's wrong...you can tell me. You know you can tell me anything, right?"

Stiles is thinking of Vargas's red skin, the way it glistened sickly in the lamplight. He wants to puke. "Yeah, I know."

Scott waits expectantly, but Stiles can almost feel Peter listening in from somewhere in the house, leaning forward in anticipation. Not to mention any other werewolf ears. He's not sure what he'd say to Scott anyway, but he's definitely not saying it now. "Okay," his friend continues at last, maybe realizing the bad timing. He moves back toward the rest of the pack. "Just let me know, if there's anything…"

"I will. Yeah. Thanks, Scotty."

.

As the sun reaches its zenith, Stiles begins to feel stronger. Better. Whole. He leaves the shaded porch to lie out on the grass like a beach-goer, sunbathing and careless. The pain disappears bit by bit, and though the usual restlessness is still there, his body seems to understand that he needs to heal, not act. At least for now.

"Stilinski has the right idea," a voice says from somewhere overhead. When Stiles pries his eyes back open, the sunlight makes him squint, but he can make out Erica's long hair. The other betas are clamoring past. Break time, probably. "You okay?" she asks.

Stiles wonders how many times he'll hear this question, and if it'll ever stop taking him by surprise. "I'm okay."

"Good," she says, and then she spreads herself onto the grass beside him. "I think if that bitch hadn't got shot in jail, one of the Hales would have gone up to quietly rip her throat out."

Stiles blinks, not knowing what he's supposed to make of this. "Not you?" he jokes.

"There's a pecking order. I don't get first dibs," Erica says matter-of-factly. "It was probably going to be Peter, I think. Go back to sleep, Stiles."

Stiles does.

.

Late evening finds the pack spilled across the living room, one of the rare times when everyone's present at once—including Peter, who'd left the house earlier to spend the day god knows where.

Scott and the others are clustered around the television, still a little sweaty from the second round of training, but no less energetic as they duke it out Playstation-style. Isaac and Erica are shouting conflicting advice at Boyd as his avatar navigates. Lydia's draped across Jackson's side, complaining that all they ever want to do is fight, and even Laura's got a stake in the game, arguing with Derek over whose turn it is next. Though the pizza's long since been devoured, the scent of it lingers in the air.

Stiles is plastered across one end of the sofa, lazily taking it all in. So maybe that's why he notices the pack perk up in a wave: Peter first and the newest betas last.

"What is it?" he asks warily.

"A car coming up," Isaac says, head cocked.

"It's...your dad's car?" Scott adds tentatively, and Laura nods once, giving him a pleased smile. Scott preens, a student praised by the teacher; Isaac mutters under his breath, but Stiles doesn't catch the ensuing argument about how Scott's had enough exposure to the engine to know it better. He's already out the door.

His father stands in the driveway, hands casually on his belt. He's still in his uniform, cruiser parked next to the Camaro behind him. "Hey, you," he says gently to Stiles. He looks him up and down, and whatever he sees seems to settle something in him. "Came to check in. Are you feeling better?"

"A lot. Not like dying anymore, anyway. And it was a nice day out today," he adds as an afterthought. "Got some sun."

His dad gets the message. "Good." He smiles warmly, and then he shifts in place. "I'd like to talk to you and Peter Hale."

"Um."

"What can I do for you, Sheriff Stilinski?" Peter asks. Stiles prides himself on only barely jumping at the werewolf's sudden presence at his side.

His dad stares at Peter, probably considering those breaking and entering charges, but at last, he sighs. "I've been going through Vargas's things at the office. Pulled a couple of deputies I know I can trust to dig through her apartment and bring me any files so I can look through them personally. So far, she's spotless. Nothing connecting her to this or any other crime, to Kate Argent or Garrison Myers. If she was the voice on the phone, we'd have no way of knowing."

"She said she wasn't," Stiles replies slowly.

"She could have been lying," Peter retorts.

"No. She said it was someone else."

His dad sighs. "Right. Any news about Argent?"

"Kate's scent's still fading around the Argent house," Peter says. "She hasn't been back. I haven't been able to track her beyond a certain point, but I also haven't picked up her trail anywhere around town. It seems the baby Argent isn't lying when she says her aunt's left Beacon Hills."

"But we're still not safe," Stiles continues. It comes out more like a question than he'd meant, and his dad takes it as one.

"No, we're not. I'm going to keep combing through the files at the station, maybe pull Parrish into helping. And I'm going to stay the night there—probably the best mixture of safety and somewhere I can work. I want you to stay here. If that's alright," he adds to Peter.

Peter nods. "Of course."

"And he'll be safe here?"

Stiles is scowling, knowing his father and suddenly realizing where the new line of questioning is going. "Dad, I'm fine. The Hales are fine."

His father ignores this. "I'd like to learn a little more about the situation here."

Stiles rubs a hand over his face and down his jaw. There's a smirk stretching over Peter's mouth, probably because he's an asshole who enjoys drama. "Let me get the alpha for you," the werewolf says courteously.

"No, don't—"

But Laura's already outside, Peter slipping back into the door like they'd planned it. "Sheriff Stilinski," she murmurs over Stiles's sigh.

"Miss Hale...Alpha Hale. I have a few questions for you. About werewolves. I thought maybe it would be best to come straight to the source."

Stiles isn't sure what that says about him and the explanation he'd given his dad, but he doesn't have much time to consider it, because Laura's politeness blows him away: "I didn't know you knew," she replies, eyes sliding over to Stiles. "I'm sure I have some answers. Do you want to come inside, or to sit here?"

They all sit on the porch. And what ensues is an embarrassing recap of every question Stiles's dad has ever asked him about werewolves, and then some: How does the hierarchy of a werewolf pack work? How much freedom and what kinds of restraints do betas have to disagree with rules? What kind of training do betas receive? Can werewolves lose control during the full moon? Are pack members free to leave the pack anytime they want?

It's like a weird moral-ethical-philosophical discussion, one that Stiles finds himself slowly drawn into, a fly on the wall as Laura and his dad fling questions and answers back and forth.

Laura answers the questions candidly, and if she's ever offended, she hides it well. At least until his dad's last few pointed questions, which concern Stiles's past injuries in a gnome hunt (It was one bite, okay? And gnomes are small enough that he passed it off as a dog bite anyway) and the Hale pack's ability to protect him.

"Dad, nobody can protect me from myself—" he interjects, rolling his eyes.

"That's the truth," Laura sighs, without any malice. She fixes a glare on Stiles's dad. "Look, we're...a relatively new pack. And yes, most of our betas are untrained. But any hunter who wants to hurt Stiles, or any of the betas, is going to have to go through all of us, because that's the way it works. Stiles is pack," she adds, "And we take care of our own, with everything we have."

Stiles isn't completely sure what mixture of disbelief and astonishment must be on his face right now, but Laura and his dad both look at him, and then back at each other. Something passes unspoken between them. Stiles's father nods. "Thank you," he says simply, standing. He holds out a hand to Laura, who is taken aback by the gesture for only a beat before she grasps it. "I feel better knowing he's here."

Laura straightens. "Go to work, Sheriff," she replies, smiling. An honest-to-god smile.

His dad clasps Stiles's shoulder, pauses, and then pulls him in for a brief hug. "Call if you need anything. I'll tell you what I find."

"Yeah," Stiles says, the breath gone out of him.

The Sheriff piles back into his car and leaves. Stiles watches the police cruiser disappear round the bend, slipping into the darkened forest, and tries not to feel like a little kid dropped off at school for the first time.

"Did you just adopt me?" Stiles asks half-ironically, still staring into the trees.

"Stiles, we adopted you a long time ago," Laura replies seriously. She slips back into the house, leaving Stiles on the darkened porch.

.

Over the next two weeks, Stiles sees more of the Hale pack than he probably has in the entire time he's known them. A couple of times, his dad swings by to pick him up for a few hours, bringing him to some greasy restaurant where he can both check in on Stiles and annoy him by eating decidedly not heart-healthy meats. And Scott seems determined to make sure Sunday breakfast with Melissa still happens. Other than this, Stiles has spent nearly every moment at the Hales' place, more even than most of the other betas. (Also, wait...is he a beta?)

It's enough time to learn that Isaac actually lives at the house, in one of several guest rooms, while the others only spend the night a few times a week. Enough time for Stiles to be given his own guest room, which now holds the meager clothes and necessities his dad brought by. Enough time to grow appalled at the sheer amount of takeout all of them eat, and to start cooking his staple breakfast foods, which the others devour every morning. Enough time to bond with Erica over their mutual great taste in movies. Enough time to learn that Peter maybe never actually sleeps, and enjoys scaring people who just need a drink of water at three a.m. Enough time to start fighting with Derek, who wakes around the same time as he does, over how much he spends in the bathroom (doing what, his hair?).

Enough time to get used to it all. To being part of a pack.

Scott never again asks what happened with Vargas that night, but Stiles knows he hasn't forgotten. He catches his friend staring every now and then, close by without pressing. Peter's observant enough to have questions too, probably because it seems unlikely that the fragile shell of skin and bone that is Stiles could fight off a gun and then a knife, with just flesh wounds and a concussion to show for it. Stiles is good with questions, though, and he can almost feel them in the air. So he avoids the two of them altogether.

It helps that Peter's often gone anyway, frustrated and unable to find where Kate has fled to. At one point, he disappears for three full days, and then appears suddenly at the doorway to the guest room (Stiles's room?) one morning with a grim look on his face.

"What's wrong?" Stiles asks at once, anxiety rising as he tries to read the expression. "Wait—did you find her?"

"No," Peter replies sourly. "Not for lack of trying. And there's nothing I've learned that we didn't already know. Just a confirmation."

"Where did you go?" Stiles asks slowly.

"To the county jail."

Stiles cocks his head, and then it registers: "Unger and Reddick?" he asks. "My dad already went up there to question them. He said they had nothing new."

Abruptly, Peter peels away from the doorway, turning to look down the hall.

"I know I'm interrupting." Laura's voice comes from outside the room, and Stiles gets up to peer around the corner at her. Her hands are stuffed into the back pockets of her jeans, and it takes Stiles a second to realize that she actually looks almost hesitant. Behind her, Derek stands with his arms folded, expression unreadable. "But since the two of you are talking anyway...I know you're looking into the fire, and I'd like it if you'd fill us in."

It's a toss up between who's more surprised, Peter or Stiles. Peter schools his face back to normal first, though. "Why now?" he asks, with a smirk that shows too many of his teeth. "You haven't been interested before."

"Before, I was...we were pretending we didn't have to deal with it," she says quietly. "But it's our problem, too."

"Nice of you to notice," Peter replies, the uncanny grin still there.

For someone who'd been so determined to keep his young relatives out of this investigation, Peter has always cultivated a decent amount of bitterness about it. But maybe, Stiles realizes suddenly, it's because Derek and Laura haven't even tried to fight their way into this mess; they just left their uncle to tackle it alone.

"Peter," Stiles begins quietly. "Sometimes, it takes time."

"Two years."

"My dad just started looking deeper into what happened to Mom," Stiles adds. "Sometimes, it takes time."

Peter scowls, but at last, he inclines his head. Laura gives Stiles a grateful look, and they go up to his study and shut the door behind them. Stiles does most of the talking, filling Derek and Laura in on all they've done and all they've learned so far. Derek stays mostly quiet, moody, but Laura asks sensible questions, about the legwork and what Peter's learned about Kate. It's enough to make Stiles almost glad for her presence, though Peter remains distant. Formal.

Around the time they're winding down, Stiles feels his phone vibrate. He looks down to check it, and then back up at Peter. "Uh, Dad wants to know why he's gotten a report that Unger and Reddick were both killed in their cells. Preliminary evidence suggests...stab wounds?"

Peter smirks. "Yes. About that."

"Peter...you didn't," Laura sighs.

"I understand that your father recently visited them and found they claimed ignorance, but I was...curious whether they knew more. You probably know law enforcement has ways of making people talk. Though it's essentially bribery, offers of reduced sentences. But that only works if the person in question isn't terrified of the consequences of talking."

"Like someone killing them," Stiles guesses. "Like Kate killing them."

"Exactly. And the best way to find out, in this case, is to make them afraid someone might kill them right now."

"Which you did," Laura retorts sharply, at the same time that Stiles asks "What did you find out?"

"Neither of them could positively identify the woman as Kate Argent, but they both claimed that a blonde woman around her age met with them to give specific instructions about the fire, details about the house, that sort of thing."

Laura and Derek both look sick. Stiles looks down at his phone uncomfortably, taking the opportunity to add: "I'm just gonna text back here…'yep...definitely...not...a...coincidence…'"

"They also mentioned she wasn't alone; there were two men with her. Meaning we can assume she probably has at least two other co-conspirators aside from the deputy she killed at the hospital."

"Do I even want to know how you got into and out of the jail?" Stiles asks.

"Stiles. I can get into and out of anywhere."

"Isn't it—" Laura begins, and then she pauses. When she tries again, her voice is less accusatory. "Isn't it putting the pack in danger, killing those men like that? Even if it just looks like random stabbings, Argent and her...whoever, partners, whatever—they'll know you met with those men."

Peter levels his gaze at her. "And they'll know we know more about them. And they'll know we're not playing around. They'll know what's coming for them if they start something new."

Derek frowns. "That doesn't seem—"

"Peter's right," Stiles adds, surprising probably everyone in the room. "It's...a show of force. If they're looking at the pack and all they see is a bunch of defenseless new betas, we're sitting ducks. With this move, it makes them reconsider us. It buys us some time to pin them down, see if my dad can find something or Peter can track them. And," he adds, feeling his lip curling, "it's a warning about what they can expect if they try something. Whoever's behind this, whoever's wrapped up with Vargas...they're going to pay. We're going to make them pay."

Laura looks appalled. Peter looks delighted. "I knew I liked you," he murmurs. "Positively bloodthirsty."

"Oh, shut up," Stiles says, reddening in a combination of pride and shame. "Look—I'm still not sure what happened to my Mom, but I can't help but think she's tied up in this somehow. And even if she wasn't, Kate's bad news if she was involved." He clears his throat, uncomfortable. "I don't get the sense this kind of person would come along quietly for a trial. If we—when we figure out who did it, I don't think jail's the answer. The only way to keep everyone safe is to make sure they can't hurt anyone anymore."

Laura's staring at him, but Derek slowly nods.

"I'll add that this is all very hypothetical for the moment," Peter adds blithely. "We have no leads on where any of them are."

"Okay," Laura says slowly, rubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands. "I'll contact Deaton. I mean, I haven't really talked to him as the alpha...but he's got connections. Connections I guess we need now. I'd be surprised if he couldn't help us at least get a better read on where she might have gone, or find out if she's been sighted in anyone else's territory."

"It's a start," Peter tells her, and they all pretend not to see the weak smile she offers in return.

.

Stiles is and always has been a boiling pot of anxiety mixed with ADD, but this entire situation grates on his nerves. The midday sun brings him so much restless energy and tension that he can hardly bear to be cooped up inside, still and useless.

It's weird. He knows it's weird. The noon sun is intense here, as it is everywhere in California; the heat is an arid one, the kind of heat that reminds him how close they live to the actual desert. A little before noon, the betas limp panting back into the air-conditioned house for a break after their morning training, and they stay inside until the shadows of the trees are at a firm slant. At noon, all Stiles wants is to be outside, burning with the rest of the world.

"You can't be serious," Isaac tells him one afternoon, the nth one in a row in which Stiles goes out for a "run" when the sun is at its peak in the sky. On the first and second days, the betas had come with him again; by the third, when it became clear that he didn't mean to end every excursion cooling off in the pond, they remained inside.

"I just need to get outside," Stiles replies distractedly, pulling on his sneakers.

"Yeah, f'ou say so," Scott manages around a mouth full of chicken, his face dubious. "'ave fun."

Stiles wonders again how much Laura has to tip to have someone deliver hot wings around here, listens to Jackson explaining why he deserves the last piece, and then he's gone.

He runs for ages. The forest disappears into a blur, a flash of violent greens and golds that spark white with reflected sunlight. It's hard to tell how long it takes him, but he always goes far enough that someone would have to really want to follow him—and no one ever does, at least to his knowledge.

There, in the middle of the forest, he lets himself go. He kicks up a dust storm, small enough that it wouldn't be possible to see above the trees. He paces and burns, feeling the sunlight on him, in him, the way he's never sure if he's reflecting it or causing it.

But he's careful, too. He doesn't want to start a fire, not here in the parched brush, in the middle of a drought, the earth dry and cracked underfoot.

He burns, but he's the only thing that does.

.

It's in this way that he discovers the weird things in the forest.

He doesn't know what kind of creature they are; he just catches sight of an odd movement out of the corner of his eye mid-jog. It's a green creature, squat and bearded—or maybe that's scraggly gray moss, it's hard to get a read. He slows down to take it in, the wide green eyes, the hunch of surprise. For approximately two heartbeats, he thinks, That thing's way cuter than the pixies were.

And then it grins, and its teeth shine like little knives.

It's not expecting a fight, he doesn't think, but it probably knows he's got speed on his side, because it pounces almost before he can react. He manages to kick it in the side—he's definitely not going to be telling anyone he got bit by a little green dude after all the shit he got after the gnome bite—and it falls hard to the ground.

It's up quickly, growling, and a pair of similarly bearded, ape-like things bound from the undergrowth behind it. Alarmed, Stiles lets his magic flare to life, a burning flame that surges in his chest. Light flashes in the clearing; Stiles looks down briefly to find that his red Thor tee and black jogging shorts are blinding white, sure as if they'd been bleached. His skin is pale, maybe even glowing.

The original monster-thing howls in fear, flinching back before Stiles can make a move. The others follow it into the forest.

Stiles stares after them, goosebumps covering his skin, and then realizes that something smells of smoke. The grass underfoot is alight with flames, and he quickly stomps them out with his foot.

At least when he looks down, his clothes are back to their normal color. Which is pretty sweet because this is his favorite shirt.

"Great," he gripes. "That's fucking new."

.

The creatures turn out to be trolls. This is according to Peter, who is essentially the Hale family's equivalent of a magical encyclopedia. Peter also, coincidentally, finds the trolls too irrelevant to be worth his time, if his sneering expression is anything to go by.

It doesn't matter though: as he makes himself scarce, the betas work themselves up into a riot at the chance to get out of the house and do something, at a rare opportunity to put their training to work. Like Stiles, they are being kept close, ordered to stay at the house as much as possible in the case of an attack by the hunters. Stiles isn't the only one feeling cooped up, he realizes, even if his is a different sort of anxiety from the 'wolves.

Stiles hangs back as the others work on tracking the trolls' scent, all of them stumbling behind Derek. He's not sure what's happening to him, not anymore, and he wishes his mom were here to explain. He wishes he could ask her if her powers had swelled with her emotions, or if she'd always been as collected as he recalls. He wishes his mom were here at all.

It doesn't matter now. Stiles will figure it out on his own.

He thinks it's probably because of the case, Kate and the Hale fire and the rogue hunters. The stress is getting to him; the duty to right this wrong, his wronged mother, is crawling under his skin nowadays.

"You're really okay?"

Stiles nearly tumbles forward, flailing at the voice so close by. Laura is beside him, fighting back a smile at his clumsiness. They trudge forward after the betas, who are farther off than they had been the last time Stiles checked. She must have doubled back for him at some point. "The trolls didn't get you?"

"I'm not as defenseless as I look," Stiles snaps at once.

"I didn't mean…" Laura sighs, shaking her head. "I'm not, like...trying to shoot you down or anything. I'm just asking a question."

"Yeah, ok. No, I'm fine."

For a moment, Laura's quiet again, and they trek through the woods, the evening thickening all around them. Laura slows a little, letting the betas gain a little distance on them. When Stiles realizes, he matches her pace, glancing at her curiously. "Look, Stiles," she says, once the others are out of earshot. "I think we got off on the wrong foot, alright? It's my fault," she admits. "And I'm sorry."

"Whoa, what? My ears just spazzed out."

A smirk flashes across her face, and then it's gone. "Yeah, I know. Okay. And I have a bunch of stupid excuses, like how I wasn't ready to be an alpha and didn't know how to deal with a new beta, and how I still wasn't past the fire. I'm still not…" she laughs awkwardly. "But I didn't handle it well for you and Scott. I think Scott forgave me for that already, but…" she stops, frowns. "I'm sorry it took me so long. To be okay with you guys as part of the pack."

Stiles's mouth works open and closed a few times while he figures out what to say. "Okay, first off: Scott's an idiot. He'd forgive an asshole who stole his lunch money. I'm his best friend. It's my job to hold grudges on his behalf."

"Uh, fair enough," Laura replies doubtfully.

"Second off: the fact that you even know what's most important for me to hear you apologize for, because of what you did to Scott, is going a long way to warming my cold, dead heart. I also don't care that you took it out on me, because Scott got what he needed. Seriously, he was going nuts, and I had no idea how to help him. So it's fine."

"Yeah, look, I'm not going to pretend I wasn't...or that I'm not still pissed half the time, but it's not really at you. It's just at life in general, and you were close by."

"No, I get it. I'm like, the non-werewolf sidekick, so—"

"That's not what I meant," Laura growls, frustrated. She bends down to swipe a long thread of needlegrass, which she idly plucks apart as they walk. "You're human, but that doesn't matter. You're pack. And I was worried about having to protect you on top of everything else, all these new betas...but I shouldn't have. That's what pack does. And in the end, it looks like you could protect yourself pretty well without help, anyway."

Stiles snorts. "I can't believe how many times I've heard you guys say I'm pack now. It's like I stepped into an alternate reality or something."

At this, Laura looks away. "You shouldn't have doubted it."

"Look, don't worry, Laura. I get it. You have a fucking temper. I have a fucking temper. I can relate. We're...I mean, I guess...we're cool. You keep an eye on Scott, and we're cool."

"You're a piece of work," Laura says matter-of-factly. "Scott's lucky to have you."

"I'm lucky to have him," Stiles retorts honestly.

From up ahead comes a series of growls that even Stiles can hear. He and Laura take off after the sound, Laura's supernatural speed catapulting her far in advance of Stiles.

By the time Stiles catches up, the fight is raging but controlled: the betas are spread in a semi-circle around the trolls who are springing forward with wiry limbs and sharp teeth. The pack's coordination looks great, even precise—all that training paying off in a big way. Erica and Boyd team up on a trio of the grungy-looking munchkins; Derek roars as one jumps onto Isaac, who tears it apart with his teeth. Laura and Scott are in the fray, too, farther off, backs together. For a minute, Stiles just drinks it all in.

There's a weird feeling in his chest, an odd glow. But it's not his fire burning. It's something happier, almost proud. A strange sense that all of this, these people fighting—they're his now, and maybe he actually wants them to be.

The fight dies down, the strange, bloodthirsty creatures either limp on the ground or weeping odd green tears as they flee into the brush.

"Stiles, move!" someone cries suddenly. There's a rustle of green just in front of him; he's let himself get too distracted—but in that instant, he recognizes the scraggly twist of nose and the mossy beard. What's more, it recognizes him.

Pausing in mid-attack, the troll whimpers lowly and darts away into the bushes after its retreating friends.

Stiles stares after it, open-mouthed, recovering from his own flinch. He locks eyes with Derek, who looks just as flabbergasted as Stiles himself must. "What the hell?"

"I call first shower," Erica announces irritably, wiping slimy green blood from a clawed arm.

.

In the end, Stiles guesses he shouldn't be surprised that someone eventually comes after him. He expected it to be Peter, probably, as observant as he is. Or maybe Scott, who still glances at him pointedly sometimes even now.

What he doesn't expect is that they've been comparing notes.

It's a few evenings after the trolls, which are dead and buried. (Although there are weird plants sprouting from their graves. Everyone's fervently hoping this won't be a problem.) Stiles returns to the Hale house after lunch with his dad, still half-distracted by the way his dad's obviously trying to hide frustration and fatigue. The case has gone nowhere; Deaton's given them nothing, Peter's found nothing, Stiles's dad has found nothing.

Stiles is burning with the need to know.

"You've been weird lately," Scott remarks casually as Stiles sinks into the corner armchair.

The living room is mostly empty. Laura and most of the betas are out of the house, fending off their boredom at the pond, but Scott and Derek are here, drooping tiredly on the sofa after a particularly long day of training. At the window seat, Peter absently flips through a foreboding-looking leather-backed book.

"I'm always weird."

"No," Scott says, making an effort to straighten in his seat. "Like, 'something's wrong' weird."

Stiles turns to him. "What do you mean?"

When Scott exchanges glances with both Derek and Peter, who are suddenly paying attention, Stiles stiffens in his seat. "You don't have to tell us what's going on if you don't want to," Scott assures him quickly.

"But it would greatly help," Peter snipes.

Stiles takes a breath, in and out. "What are you talking about?" he asks calmly.

"Alright," Peter replies, complete with an if-it's-going-to-be-like-this eye roll. "We have a list."

"A list." Stiles repeats flatly.

"First," Scott says, ticking off a finger. "You're always going outside when it's a thousand degrees out."

"That's not—"

"Every. Day." Derek interrupts, "And when you come back, you're exhausted and shivering. With no sweat or sunburn. Or even a tan. I mean look at you," he adds, gesturing vaguely with his arm.

"Thanks, buddy," Stiles snarks, heart thumping wildly. "Okay, maybe I like running in the middle of the day, and pale skin's making a comeback, okay? I don't know what you're getting at."

"You heal absurdly fast," Peter points out. He still hasn't left the window seat, and he turns a page in the book as though he's not even fully listening to the conversation. "Not as fast as we do, but too fast for a human. The day after the attack with Vargas, you were running outside."

"And there's Vargas, with her...those red marks," Scott says. "They passed it off like you guys were fighting in the kitchen and she got burned or something, but..."

"And that troll, which was definitely scared of you," Derek adds, "When it wasn't even scared of us."

Stiles blinks at all of them. And then, very slowly, he lowers his head into his hands. Scott rests an arm on his shoulder. "You're burning up," he remarks. "All the time now. Dude, you gotta calm down."

Oh yeah, Scott can hear Stiles's heart. Stiles forgets that sometimes. He takes a couple of breaths, trying not to make it seem like he's gasping for air.

"You don't have to say what's up," Derek says, though he's probably scowling when he says it. "But we're your pack. You have to tell us if we should be worried about it, or if you're not okay."

Stiles nods slowly, without picking his head up. He wants to tell them. He should tell them. He can feel the words there in his mouth, pressing to get out. But it also feels like too much, too soon—he wasn't expecting this, for any of them to really confront him about it beyond a few subtle pokes, and he's not prepared. This secret, the burning inside him, it's too personal, and he's guarded it for so long that he's not yet sure how to let it go. "Okay," he says at last, straightening. "You're right, there's something going on. But I can't...I don't know how to tell you about it. Yet. I'm sorry, I just…"

"Don't apologize," Scott says. "Dude, whatever's going on, you can talk about it when you're ready. Just...are you okay? Really okay?"

Stiles considers this. "I think I'm going to be," he says at last.

.

.

.

sheriff stilinski: alpha hale, i just want you to confirm in your own words that my son isn't accidentally joining a cult thx

stiles: dad pls no


	6. Like a House on Fire

.

 **Six – Like a House on Fire**

.

On the night when Peter comes into his room to wake him, Stiles feels like he's suddenly been dragged into daylight from somewhere deep in the earth.

Stiles sleeps more deeply at the Hale house than he has in ages at his own empty home. Sleep probably comes more easily when you're loaded, he thinks, or when your friends are: the Hales' guest beds are soft as fucking clouds, and the soundproofing insulation in all the bedrooms (not that he needs it with his dumb human ears) is better than his best noise-cancelling headphones.

Of course, Stiles will also admit, if only to himself, that he feels better with the others nearby, the Hales and the betas. All of whom are staying over almost every night now. He feels better knowing they're just nearby, settling in for the night. Knowing he's not alone.

"Stiles. _Stiles!_ " The werewolf is not gentle; he nearly tears off Stiles's arm. "Get up."

"Wh—? Peter? What is it?" Stiles replies in alarm, grogginess gone as he rubs at his throbbing shoulder. He can't make out Peter's face in the dark.

"It's Kate," the man growls flatly. "She's here."

"What, _here_?" Stiles slides from bed. He's whispering, though he's not sure why. "Where—?"

"Outside. She hasn't made a move yet. There are four of them. And they've put down a mountain ash circle. I think we're going to need you to break it."

Isaac and Jackson are murmuring farther down the hallway. They look up when Peter and Stiles stumble out of the room.

"Peter," Isaac begins quickly, "there's something outside, but it sounds—"

"There are several someones, and they almost certainly have some sort of spell to muffle their footsteps and heartbeats," Peter hisses, not pausing as he sweeps silently toward the front door. "Wake the others and bring them to the den."

Laura and Derek are waiting for them there, along the back wall. Maybe it's the darkness that makes their faces look ashen.

"What's the plan?" Derek asks quietly. His eyes move sharply from Peter to Stiles, and then to the windows. The world outside is mostly dark, but a sliver of moon casts a grey sheen on the woods and field. Stiles can't make out any movement, just the dance of foliage in the night breeze.

"We can't get past the mountain ash," Laura replies. Her betas slowly spill out of the hall, groggy and uncertain. They follow their alpha's lead by staying away from the windows, near the heart of the house. Stiles watches Laura turn into Alpha Hale, drawing herself up, with her hands on her hips in a projection of strength. "But if she's trapped us in here, we need to get out, before she does whatever she's planning."

"Stiles is the only one of us with a chance of making it past that barrier," Peter murmurs slowly, but his head turns to Stiles as he says it. His expression is unreadable still in the low light, but Stiles knows what he's asking: _Can you do this? Are you human enough?_

"I don't know," Stiles replies honestly. He's never had the chance to find out.

"We're not risking someone on _I don't know,_ " Derek retorts firmly.

"We're not risking anyone at all," Laura hisses. "If they have guns, they'll have wolfsbane bullets…"

"Where are they now?" Erica asks. Like all of them, she keeps her voice low as she peers through the window.

"Not out in this direction, they're…" Laura pauses. "They were at an angle near the driveway, but they're moving forward now. Toward the front door."

"All of them?" Stiles asks. "Maybe I can try the mountain ash at the back—"

"We have no idea if there are more in the woods, Stiles—"

"What the fuck else are we going to do?"

A moment later, there's pounding at the door. Laura and Peter exchange a look of pure disbelief. "Is this bitch...?" Laura whispers, unable to finish her thought.

"What, no hospitality?" A voice calls from somewhere in the darkness outside. The sound is slightly muffled by the door, at least for Stiles, but the others all freeze and stare toward the entryway as one. "I know you can hear me, you werewolves with your superhuman senses and all." And then: "What?" She snickers. "You'd almost think you didn't _want_ me here."

"There _are_ more of them," Laura hisses, cocking her head. "At the back of the house—Derek?"

Derek grabs Isaac, and the two of them slink away toward the sound.

"I wasn't sure I'd ever have the chance to do this again," the voice admits from outside. "Not a second time. But I managed to scrounge up some old friends who were as eager as I was." Her amusement is audible. "You know _this_ is how I did it, right? The first time. There was a mountain ash ring around your family while their house burned around them. It's pretty fitting that you and your new pack die the same way as your old one."

Someone howls from behind Stiles—Peter, he thinks, but maybe Derek too. And something is howling _in_ Stiles, a fire raging wildly in his chest, embers in one moment and chaos the next. He can't believe this woman is finally here, right in front of him, separated only by the barrier of a wooden door. For so long, he's been tracking the events of the past, piecing together a trail gone cold, wondering what happened so long ago. He wants to know everything. He _has_ to know.

The other betas are slinking around the house, doing recon under Laura's hissed orders, trying to figure out how many are outside. Stiles takes advantage of the distraction to step slowly toward the front door.

"The only thing that sucks is that I won't get to see your faces as you go," the woman is saying blithely. Stiles has tunnel vision. He presses a hand against the door, feeling the wood under his fingers. He's almost surprised that it doesn't blacken and burn.

"Do you know anything about the murder of Claudia Stilinski?" His own quiet voice sounds strange, as if it doesn't belong to him anymore. He's never felt this way; there's a roaring in his ears and a surge of heat unlike anything he's ever known. But he somehow feels the question _catch_ on the woman outside, just beyond the door, though he isn't even holding her gaze.

"Stiles!" Laura hisses from behind him. "What the fuck..." Someone grabs his shoulder and then immediately jolts away, letting out a sound of surprise.

There's a pause. If Kate didn't have some way of blocking her footsteps, Stiles suspects he'd hear her shuffling around to face the door.

"Ah," the woman says at last. "You must be the Stilinski boy, then. Pity Vargas didn't finish you off like she was supposed to." Stiles waits, staring at the door like he might be able to see her face through it. The question still hangs over her, and he can feel her answer coming. "Your mother was an...unfortunate piece of collateral damage. She put things together too quickly, and asked too many smart questions. Like mother, like son," the voice purrs. "You've turned out to be a very smart boy."

Stiles can accept the answer, but it doesn't tell him what he needs to know. "Did you murder her?"

"I didn't," Kate says cheerfully. "I don't usually get my hands dirty with that sort of thing. The man the police caught, Tyler Mendez? It really _was_ him. He was just...paid to do it. Unfortunately for him, he got caught."

Stiles didn't know how he'd feel when he learned what really happened, whether his theory would turn out to be right, but he didn't expect to feel nothing. Empty. There's only the fire. And it's still burning.

"And then you faked his suicide," he murmurs slowly, "so he wouldn't talk to the police?"

"What did I say?" Kate chuckles. "Smart boy."

Stiles pauses. "Who killed Deputy Vargas?"

"Ah, that _was_ me," Kate replies. "It was before I'd called up a few friends. And, well...needs must. She was useful while she lasted."

She's giving him a lot to work with, much more than he's asking. Stiles wonders if she feels like this is just her moment to shine, the grand reveal she's been waiting for as the evil movie villain. Wonders if she can feel the heat yet, or if she notices the compulsion.

He turns from the door to find Laura and the others staring at him, spellbound—their faces are a mixture of wonder and fear. _Oh,_ he realizes, thoughts moving as if in slow motion. An image of his blinding white Thor shirt and glowing skin from the other day surfaces to mind. _Wonder what I look like now._ "What else do you want to know?" he asks them quietly.

For a second, no one says anything at all. Stiles wonders if they're broken. And then Peter speaks up. "Who else was involved in the fire?"

It's Stiles who has to ask the question, though. He knows, somehow, that whatever magic he possesses has spread, cloaking Kate in full and extending to the other hunters as well. He feels the same burning restlessness he always does, the same white-hot glow, but it's magnified a thousand times over.

He opens the door.

"Stiles—!" someone calls, but he doesn't listen. In spills the cool evening breeze, but he suffuses it with his own fire, boiling the space all around. The air is already choked with eddies of dust.

Kate stares at him for a long moment, the smirk fading from her lips. Objectively, he decides that she's beautiful in a classic sort of way, with lightly curled blonde hair and dark eyes that dart over Stiles's face. "What's happening?" she asks, suddenly uncertain.

Stiles looks down at the barrier of mountain ash, and then he steps over it, feeling it crackle and burn away underfoot. "Who else was involved in the Hale fire?" he retorts instead.

Kate's face is flushed. She takes an unsteady step back, but that's all the movement she can manage. Farther off, there are others in the field—Stiles can _sense_ them, only because they, too, are under his spell now. Unmoving, paused in the darkness. Their heartbeats are sluggish in the drowning heat. "It was...me. Vargas. Unger. Reddick. Rowenta. Myers. That's all."

"Rowenta?" Peter asks. Stiles becomes aware of the man's presence at his back, of all of them pressing forward in the doorway.

"Who is Rowenta?" Stiles repeats.

"She's—here. Around the back of the house," Kate says slowly, her breathing more labored.

"Do the other Argents know what she did?" Scott asks quietly from behind him.

Dutifully, Stiles repeats the question.

"No," Kate says. "It's only me."

Finally, Laura presses forward. "Why?" she asks simply.

Stiles doesn't like the question—the answer won't be satisfying no matter what Kate says, and it's too subjective for his tastes, but he asks it anyway.

"You were... _here,_ " Kate manages, practically spitting. "Living, and _breeding._ With new betas every now and then. It was... _you_ were...are...fucking abominations," she says helplessly.

For a moment, Stiles pauses, considering this. He feels agitated still, and suddenly ready to end this once and for all. "Who else knows you're here?" he asks finally.

Kate's face is suddenly filled with fear. She fights not to answer. "What—what are you doing? How are you doing this?"

Stiles smiles. "I ask the questions. You answer them. _Who else knows you're here?_ "

"Rowenta's husband. A hunter named Aline Johnson—in Florida. That's all," she finishes in a whisper.

"Good," Stiles murmurs. He knows what has to happen next, what his magic is crying out for, but he can feel it happening only distantly, as if he's watching someone else from a long way off. "I need you to go back into the house," Stiles says quietly, turning back to Laura and the others. He can see the barest white glow reflected on their faces and clothes. It's coming from _him_ , he realizes.

"Stiles…" Laura begins, but he doesn't let her finish.

"It's hard to explain right now," Stiles says, reaching out mentally to locate the other immobile hunters throughout the grounds, pinpricks of heat in the darkness like stars in space. "But this is what I am. And I need to do this."

Laura hesitates for only a second before she starts pulling the betas off the porch and into the entryway. Peter's the one who doesn't move. Stiles stares at him, then nods, and Peter is in full shift on top of Kate, teeth pulling strands of glistening red from her throat. There's no time for her to even see it coming; her eyes grow wide, fingers scrabbling on the wooden porch as she chokes on her own blood.

Peter watches her gagging, writhing in pain on the ground—he and Stiles both do. And then, wordlessly, the wolf sweeps back inside the house. The door swings shut behind him.

The _snick_ of the latch may as well be a starting gun for Stiles: everything turns to fire as soon as he hears the sound. The world becomes daylight, and he's burning alive, along with everyone beyond the wooden house. Dust is in the air. Stiles breathes it all in but doesn't choke; it only spurs his flames. There's the smell of smoke, too, and he feels its grime caress his skin and slide away.

He's not sure how long it takes for him to burn out. But what feels like hours pass, and eventually it's done. Dust still batters the windows of the Hale house, and the heat of midday lingers in the air, but the light has gone—only the rind of moon illuminates the porch and field beyond.

The porch and house are untouched, pristine. But of the hunters, there's nothing to bury: it's hard to tell where the mountain ash ends and Kate's remains begin. Farther off, Stiles knows the other hunters are the same, piles of dust in the grass, tossed about by the night wind.

Everything comes back to him at once. He turns to the window, where he can just make out the lines of the others' faces in the darkness. Laura and Derek are the worst, though: there's something like raw fear in their faces, or maybe even revulsion. Stiles suddenly can't imagine what it must have been like for them, trapped inside the house where their family once burned to death.

"Sorry," he says weakly, swallowing hard. "I'm sorry."

He can't take their stares, and he's standing in something that's probably burnt Kate, and his heart is going too fast. He takes the steps off of the porch and walks off into the night, fleeing like a fucking coward.

.

Scott finds him not even five minutes later, because of course he does.

"Dude," he says, crouching beside Stiles, who is huddled against the trunk of a birch tree just off the trail. He hadn't gone far— _couldn't_ go far. He's tired and shivering. "Dude," Scott says again, putting an arm across Stiles's shoulders. "What the hell man, now you're freezing," he mutters, though this seems to be mostly to himself.

Stiles closes his eyes and breathes in, breathes out. It was his mom who taught him that part—the calming breaths. Not for anything like this, just for normal school-induced panic, but still, it had been her.

"You're not all...white anymore," Scott observes.

"Dude, racist," Stiles croaks weakly.

Scott laughs. After a minute, he asks, "Do you want to talk?"

Stiles groans. "God, no."

"Okay." And that's the best fucking thing about Scott, that _okay._ Stiles can practically feel the questions buzzing around in Scott's head, but he doesn't ask any of them out loud. Instead, he just sits with Stiles, who leeches his friend's warmth and tries to stop freaking out.

"Are Laura and the others okay?" Stiles asks at last.

"Um, pretty much. I mean, uh, nobody's upset about...what you did," Scott says awkwardly. "Just confused. But we're all okay. I mean, me and the others pretty much have stopped freaking, and I get the sense that the Hales, when it comes to supernatural stuff...they've seen some shit. Even the _house_ is okay, the whole front of it, like nothing even happened. So whatever you're worried about...I think it'll be fine."

The vote of confidence is enough for Stiles. "Okay," he mumbles, shakily standing. "Let's go back to the house. Because I only want to do this once."

.

" _You_. A witch?"

"Um. _Basically_ a witch," Stiles confirms.

Everyone lets that part settle in. They're hungry for details, mostly because there's nothing to do about the ashes, which tomorrow will be swept up and spread far away, someplace where the hunters can no longer touch Hale land. And Stiles expects that Peter's already contacted someone to take care of that last hunter, or he wouldn't be sitting so calmly in his habitual place by the window. They're back in the den, the betas gathered around while Laura paces in agitation between the TV and coffee table.

For his part, Stiles was promptly welcomed back with way more fervor than expected, especially once the others had seen how badly he was shaking. Now, he sits in the armchair, a blanket draped across his shoulders; Boyd had even hastily made a mug of tea and pressed it into his hands. Their eyes boggle at him as he sips it, and it's all he can do not to be too unsettled by the attention.

"Jackson," Scott says after a moment of silence, glaring suspiciously at the smirking face of the boy in question, "I swear to God, if you say anything about only girls being witches—"

Jackson throws his hands up in the air. "So I _wasn't_ the only person thinking it."

"He's not wrong," Stiles says, shrugging. "Witches _are_ mostly girls."

"No, but..." Derek mutters, rubbing his chin as he stares at Stiles. "Witches are way more 'blood and summoning.' That wasn't like any witch I've ever heard of."

"I'm not that kind of witch," Stiles explains, frowning. "It's through my mom. She was from Poland. I'm called a _poludnica._ "

Abruptly, Peter throws a book across the room. Stiles and the others stare. "I didn't think to look at creatures from Poland," he grouses, glaring as if this is Stiles's fault.

"Were you...looking up stuff? About me?"

"You weren't exactly forthcoming. And it seemed like a good thing for the pack to be aware of. Besides," he adds airily, "it was better than waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Wow, not creeped out at all," Stiles mutters under his breath. He covers a yawn.

"I'm sorry," Laura seethes abruptly, "but can we just get back to the main program where you explain what the hell just happened."

"Yeah, okay." Stiles shakes the exhaustion away, downs the last of the tea, and tries to gather his thoughts. "So. _Poludnica_ are basically heat witches, and mostly but not totally human. I guess. Right? And our job used to be to protect the fields and crops, and especially the summer harvest...basically causing a sunstroke in anyone who was disturbing the fields or whatever. But we'd also...so, anyone we caught, we'd ask them questions, or well, it used to be riddles, to decide if they were worth letting go or not. We could kind of tell if we liked their answers, or if they were telling the truth or at least _thought_ they were telling the truth, or the whole story, or that kind of thing.

"My mom once told me that nowadays no one's really out protecting fields anymore, but the powers never really went away. We're strongest in the summer and especially in the middle of the day, and sometimes you can still, like, _feel_ the power running through you."

"That's why you were always going nuts at noon," Erica observes.

"Basically, yeah. It's never been so bad before this summer, though. Used to be that if I wanted, even in summer, I could forget I wasn't human. Ignore it, kind of. But I think I had so many questions since mom died that...my powers started acting up. Until I got answers, I was just on fire, like, all the time. But right now…" Stiles pauses, considering. "Now, they're quieter. Less intense."

"It explains Vargas," Scott says quietly. "And the whole...literal fire thing."

Stiles cringes. "Yeah, that was...new. I didn't actually know I could do that."

"Your mom couldn't?" Erica asks, and Scott quickly adds. "Oh my god, your mom was a _firefighter_."

Stiles snorts. "Perfect job, right? But yeah, she could do it, the whole...making-fires-thing. But only after working with fires for years and years."

"It sounds almost like having a wolf," Isaac ventures. "Like how, once you figure out how to get what it needs, it settles down."

At this, Stiles quirks his head. "Huh. Yeah, I didn't think of that."

"You looked badass, dude," Scott grins suddenly. "I don't even _know._..it was weird."

"It was hard to make out your face even, like your eyes were glowing—"

"Did your teeth get sharp?"

"Your clothes were white, too."

Smiling hesitantly, Stiles shakes his head. But he realizes Laura and Peter are still watching him, considering. Stiles takes a breath. "So, um. It's not really okay, what I did...I knew it might happen, it's part of who I am, and I was getting answers. No matter what happened. Because my mom...knowing what really happened, that she was killed because she started connecting the dots, it doesn't change anything. I don't magically feel... _over it._ But I had to know, because what happened was a part of her. And I want to know all of her.

"But I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, and I'm sorry it went down like this," he adds quickly. "I didn't mean to basically burn outside of the house you rebuilt after a fire, which was probably really shitty. And I didn't mean to _not_ tell the pack, but it's...they're my mom's powers. I didn't know how I felt about it, using them like that, and I still don't, and it just, like...happened that way." Before he can keep rambling, Stiles snaps his mouth shut _._

Peter, as usual, is the one to break the silence. "I, for one, appreciate the irony of Kate Argent burning in a fire," he says mildly.

Laura's expression is marginally less frosty. "Okay," she says slowly. "Look, I'm not angry. But—"

"You look angry," Stiles observes.

"I always look angry. But I'm not, I'm just—"

"Disappointed?"

" _Stiles,_ " she says, scraping her hands through her hair. "I'm— _annoyed,_ okay? I'm the _alpha_ ; I'm supposed to know what's going on so I can _make decisions to protect the pack._ Tonight, I had _no fucking clue_ what was going on. I didn't know what you were doing, I was basically just hoping that _you_ did. And that you weren't going to die on my watch. I don't like that feeling. I never want to feel like that again."

"Oh," Stiles says. He nods tiredly. "I get it."

"Kiss and make up," Jackson says lazily, and Stiles and Laura flick him off in unison. Stiles shivers.

"Are you cold?" Boyd asks. "Is that a thing?"

"Yeah." Stiles looks down at his hands. "Not usually this bad, though. But again, I've never, you know. And, uh, I'm guessing probably going to sleep for two full days or maybe more. I'm not exaggerating. Don't think I'm dead or something. If I wake up buried, I'll come back and haunt you all."

"Go to bed, Stiles," Laura says at last. "We'll talk in the morning. Whenever that is."

.

Actually, the fire changes very little.

It's almost like the world resolves itself into something simpler, like there are fewer complications to chase down and understand.

Things becomes normal: the pack is made of werewolves, and Lydia the banshee, and Stiles the poludnica. Stiles quickly learns that it's only weird if he makes it weird...so he stops making it weird. Or he tries anyway. It's the new and interesting thing among his pack for the first week or so, if only because nothing new has come along to try to kill them, and the betas have tons of questions: When school starts up, can Stiles use his magic to ask their teachers to give them the exam questions? Can he light a cigarette with his mind? Would Stiles die if he was stranded in the desert?

Stiles doesn't know all of those answers (not that he's planning to test them or anything). But what he does know is that he's not burning all the time anymore. Not like he was. He has what he needs, and so the hunger for answers doesn't drive him anymore.

"Boring," Peter says flatly when Stiles tries to explain this. "You're much more interesting if you're on a revenge kick."

" _You're_ done with your revenge kick," Stiles retorts, fidgeting on the arm of the living room sofa. "Aren't you?"

"Hm. I'm boring too, now," Peter laments. He leans back in his chair by the window, and Stiles leaves him alone with the newspaper.

Stiles goes home. The guest rooms are still available for him at the Hales' place; he knows this now without having to ask. But as much as he likes spending time there, a part of him misses his home and his bed and his _dad._

Who is even there more often now, having quietly let the investigation into Vargas's death run cold. He's often actually present when Stiles starts picking up empty beer bottles, often enough to look chagrined, anyway. And to leave fewer bottles the next time. He's there often enough to give Stiles pointed glares whenever Stiles sneaks back into the house too late after pack meetings. Often enough for Stiles to cook him an actual _dinner_ every couple days (and Stiles really has to up his recipe game—breakfast for dinner can only get you so far in life).

All of it feels like more than Stiles deserves.

.

"Should I feel worse about those hunters?" Stiles asks by way of opening the conversation one afternoon.

He's gotten into the habit of poking his head into Peter's study every day or so, partially because Peter is usually the only person not training when Stiles is at his most bored. And partially because, no matter that Peter has perfect hearing, the man can't always hide his surprise at the fact that Stiles stopped at his door. Stiles gets the sense that not many people stop by Peter's for a chat.

"You mean about what you did to them." Peter says slowly, and then he drawls, "Why are you asking me?" The question is serious enough that he turns to give Stiles his full attention. Now, two weeks after Kate, there are new files and photos spread across his desk and bulletin board. He's already nosing his way into whatever else the Argents were up to before Kate died. Stiles poked through the files, curious, when Peter wasn't looking (hey, turnabout is fair play, and he's pretty sure Peter can smell that he dug through his stuff).

"Who else am I going to ask?"

At this, Peter tilts his head and shrugs, like he gets Stiles's point. "Did you take pleasure in it?"

Stiles leans awkwardly against the bookshelf. "I mean, no. I didn't...I just felt like it had to be done. And I guess like _I_ had to do it. I don't know if that was because of _me_ or because of my powers."

"Then no," Peter says decisively. He turns back to his files, as though there's no need for further discussion. "They've already wasted enough of your life by hurting you, and by making you sweat to go after them."

"I guess that's one way of looking at it," Stiles says slowly.

"You don't feel bad about it," Peter observes.

"I don't, but...I feel bad that I don't feel bad about it. Like maybe there's something wrong with me. I thought I'd feel...I dunno. Either really great or really guilty, but it's just like...hollow. I mean, finally _knowing,_ that's the thing I needed, but what I did to Kate and the others, it's like it just happened. It was something that had to happen. And now it's over."

"And now it's over," Peter echoes. "It's okay to keep moving after something like this. Maybe your feelings will change, and maybe they won't. But in the end, you're the one who decides that—what to do with what happened, or what it makes of you."

Stiles nods slowly, absorbing the advice. Peter ignores him, adjusting the papers on his desk in relative silence. Another thought occurs to Stiles as he watches. "Are you worried? About more hunters, I mean. Like, coming after the pack or something."

Peter turns back, and his smile is feral. "They might come," he admits. "But I'm not worried."

Stiles smiles back. Offhandedly, he wonders if a part of Peter actually enjoys this now, feeling more like he has a pack to protect—not the one he used to have, but a new one, and a real one. Stiles wonders if Peter likes the intricacies of it, of matching wits with hunters and foes.

But he decides not to ask. He hums in agreement, and then turns away to head back downstairs.

.

"The amount of money we spend on food around here is _insane,_ " Laura laments, peering over Boyd's shoulder as he scrawls a few addendums to the grocery list.

"It doesn't matter, does it? You're loaded," Lydia retorts flippantly.

"And coming from _Lydia_ , that actually means something," Boyd adds, not looking up from his writing.

Training has just finished for the day, and the distant sunset is a glow of purple behind the trees. The betas are covered in a thin sheen of sweat and dirt, lethargic and endorphin-happy and occasionally slapping mosquitoes away from their legs. Erica and Isaac are still play-roughhousing on the grass, their laughs somewhere between human and wolfish as they make their way to the house, but the others are gathered around Boyd on the front porch, debating the growing list of food products.

Stiles ambles toward them slowly, his face catching in a wide yawn. Laura tears her attention away from the discussion to glance his way.

"How'd it go?"

Stiles shrugs sheepishly. "It wasn't really super easy to focus, honestly. Eventually, I accidentally ended up sleeping instead of meditating."

"You need it," Laura replies, looking at him critically. "Besides, it takes practice. It's not something you just instantly get good at."

"Yeah, definitely not _me,_ " Stiles responds, sinking onto the wooden porch at the foot of Scott's chair as the other betas continue bickering around him. "Meditating, what the hell. It's like I'm a whole nother person. Without anger issues."

Laura stifles a smile. "It'll take a while to learn. But if your thing is anything like what betas go through to control their powers better, it'll eventually help."

"I'm trusting you," Stiles says, shrugging. It's a little flippant, but it's not a lie. Not these days.

The other betas' squabbles draw his attention back:

"No, put down—hey, put down _100% beef franks,_ that's important—"

"Dude, Jackson, are you even a diva when it's just groceries?"

"You're laughing now, but you'll be thanking me later."

"Oh, yeah! Don't forget milk and cookies!"

This last is from Scott, and after a beat the exclamation draws surprised laughter from the others. "What the hell are you talking about?" Erica asks, leaning a shoulder on Derek. "I mean, I guess I'm not complaining, but…"

Scott shrugs, looking down at Stiles. "It's tradition." He obviously expects Stiles to back him up, but Stiles just stares back at him blankly. "You know...since we were kids. We leave it out for Captain America every year."

"Oh my god. It's the Fourth of July?" Stiles realizes suddenly. "When, today? Tomorrow?"

"Yeah, tomorrow. Man, are you okay?"

"Dude, I totally lost track of time." At his sympathetic glance, Stiles adds, "I had a concussion and then was in a three-day heat-induced coma, so no judgement."

"You guys are _so_ weird," Erica says under her breath. "Are we getting fireworks, too?"

"Derek's already got some."

"Wait, so you guys are barbecuing?"

" _We're all_ barbecuing," Laura replies. "Everyone's coming. You, too. I'm dragging Peter out of the office if I have to."

"Good luck with that," Stiles replies automatically.

"We're gonna lure him down here with Jackson's dumb hot dogs—"

"They're _Nathan's,_ so they're gonna be good—"

"—watch the contest this year?"

"Dude, did you know we eat like 20 billion hot dogs a year?" Stiles wonders aloud. "It works out to like 70 per person, which is crazy."

Jackson groans at this, but the others perk up, sensing one of Stiles's Random Knowledge Adventures™ coming up. "Hit me with another tube steak fact," Erica says gleefully.

"Rude of you to assume I have another one. What's the most popular topping?"

"Ketchup!"

"Mustard. It's not even close, like seventy percent of people or something."

"Actual heathens!" Erica crows, delighted.

As they start debating _toppings_ now (seriously, it doesn't take much), Stiles turns to Derek. "Is it weird if I bring my dad by for a while tomorrow?"

Derek shrugs. "Seems fine. He and Peter seem to be getting along, which is…"

"Super weird," Stiles finishes.

"I was going to say probably good for them, but I guess that, too," he replies, amused.

Stiles nods, leaning on the wooden railing. "Yeah." He watches the betas argue with _way_ more energy than should be allowed for people who've been running around for like five hours straight. They gesture enthusiastically, like it's a life-and-death thing. Stiles finds himself smiling.

"What is it?" Derek asks, curious.

Stiles shakes his head. "Dunno. I'm just, like, out of questions to ask. I always have questions." His lips quirk into a small smile. "It's kinda nice."

Derek hums as they watch the argument unfold, Isaac threatening to literally strangle Jackson in his sleep.

From somewhere farther off, there's the smell of smoke—but it's the good kind. Not fire or gunpowder or cigarettes but the singular smell of fireworks, already bursting to life somewhere in anticipation of the Fourth. There's an almost palpable excitement choking the hot evening air: something coming. Something good.

.

.

.

 **A/N:** Basically, this is how I envision the end:

laura: we have fucking anger issues man, we should learn to meditate or something

stiles: i do hot yoga sometimes

laura: yes pls

and that's the story of how Stiles and Laura become yoga buddies, and maybe the rest of the pack also.

Anyway, hey, if you're still here, thanks for sticking around. I really hope you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it! As of this moment, there are no _immediate_ plans for a sequel, mostly because I have some other Teen Wolf fics in the works to publish soon. But I do have a few very definite ideas of where this one would go next, so...never say never and all that.

Please leave a review! Every one helps warm my cold, dead heart.

Till next time,

ket


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